WAVERLY, Iowa-- Wartburg (9-7) opens the Iowa Conference portion of its schedule with a weekend series against Loras (8-8). The teams will meet for the single nine-inning game Friday at 6 p.m. and will play a twinbill of two nine-inning games Saturday at noon.

The Series
Wartburg holds the all-time series lead at 66-35 and won all four contests in Waverly last season.

Loras
Danny Weis leads the team at .444 and Jake Oglesby follows at .394. Robert Hovey leads the pitching staff with a 1.83 ERA and is 3-0 in 19.2 innings of work.

Wartburg
Junior Blake Mahoney (Des Moines) has a team-best .394 batting average. Five teammates join him above .300: junior Eric Willis (Waverly) at .381, senior Austin Lechtenberg (DeWitt) at .370, junior Cody Hyler (Des Moines) at .341 and classmate David Fitzgerald (Dubuque) at .313.

Seniors Jacob Thumann (DeWitt) and Samuel Van Fleet (St. Paul) co-lead the team with 12 RBIs.

Classmate Taylor Gilson (Oelwein) leads the pitchers with a 3.79 ERA, is 3-1 in 38.0 innings pitched with 34 strikeouts.

Career Record Watch
Thumann needs six home runs to become the program's all-time leader in that category. Gilson has entered the top ten list at No. 9 in strikeouts (164).

National Stat Rankings
Wartburg ranks in the top 100 of 12 NCAA stat categories.
The Knights rank 7^th in walks allowed per nine innings (2.25), 8^th in strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.44), 10^th in fielding percentage (0.974), 21^st in WHIP (1.26), 70^th in sacrifice flies (9), 77^th in home runs per game (0.50), 77^th in stolen bases (30), 80^th in stolen bases per game (1.88), 84^th in home runs (8), 85^th in hits allowed per nine innings (9.07), 87^th in strikeouts per nine innings (7.7), and 93^rd in earned run average (4.04).

Individually, two Knights rank in the top 100 of two different categories. Senior Taylor Gilson (Oelwein, Iowa) ranks 18^th in complete games (2).

Junior Tanner Eckhart (Monticello, Minn) ranks 33^rd in strikeout-to-walk ratio (9.67).