WAVERLY, Iowa-- The No. 25 Wartburg baseball team (16-6 overall, 9-1 IIAC) travels to face Dubuque (12-10, 5-5) in a weekend series. The teams will play two doubleheaders (a seven-inning game followed by a nine-inning game) and first pitch is at 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.



The Series
Wartburg owns the series lead at 69-25. The teams split last year's games as the Spartans won the first twinbill and the Knights claimed the last two games.

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Wartburg
Sophomores Zach Hovick (Roland) and Clay Henning (Plymouth, Wis.) lead the team with their batting averages of .424 and .400, respectively. Seniors Milton Croes (Noord, Aruba) is next at .328 and Tanner Johnson (Oak Creek, Wis.) rounds out those above .300 at .304. Senior Ryan Kemp (Keokuk) has a team-best 37 RBIs and junior Jake Thumann (DeWitt) has a team-high four homeruns.

Sophomore Tanner Eckhart (Monticello, Minn.) leads the starting pitching staff with a 1.15 ERA and is 2-0 in 39 innings pitched.

Dubuque
Trace Florek leads his team at .455 and Thomas Kempf follows at .410. Six other Spartans are currently averaging above .300. Jacob Padilla leads the pitching staff with a 3.34 ERA and is 2-1 in 29.2 innings pitched.

National Stat Rankings
Wartburg ranks in the Top 100 of eight categories, the NCAA announced Wednesday. The Knights are: first in strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.95), third in walks allowed per nine innings (2.02), fifth in ERA (2.57), 15th in hits allowed/nine innings (8.07), 37th in win/loss percentage (.727), 38th in strikeouts/nine innings (8.0) 42nd in fielding percentage (.964) and 78th in stolen bases (42).

Individually, Eckhart is 22nd in ERA (1.15), Hovick is 38th in toughest to strikeout while Mahoney is 41st in stolen bases/game (.64) and 48th in stolen bases (14).