WAVERLY, Iowa-- Wartburg (18-10 overall, 9-3 IIAC) hosts Buena Vista (18-9, 9-3) in a weekend conference series, in a battle between two of the three first-place teams in the standings.

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The Series
Wartburg owns the all-time series lead at 61-37.

Buena Vista
Kolby Hilgenberg is the team's leading hitter at .358 and Noah Paper follows at .348. Jake Lewis leads the pitching staff with a 1.54 ERA and is 6-1 in 46.2 innings pitched.

Wartburg
Junior Blake Mahoney (Des Moines) has a team-best .400 batting average. Six teammates join him above .300: junior Eric Willis (Waverly) at .372, senior Jacob Thumann (DeWitt) at .356, junior Cody Hyler (Des Moines) at .341, junior David Fitzgerald (Dubuque) at .337, senior Austin Lechtenberg (DeWitt) at .344, and junior Clay Henning (Plymouth, Wis.) at .311.

Mahoney leads the team with 29 RBIs, and Thumann follows with 27.

Senior Taylor Gilson (Oelwein) leads the starting pitchers with a 3.09 ERA and is 5-1 in 64.0 innings pitched with 53 strikeouts.

Career Record Watch
Thumann has tied the program's mark for career home runs at 28, which was set by Wartburg Athletics Hall of Fame member Matt Thede in 2001. Gilson is No. 7 in strikeouts (183).

National Stat Rankings
Wartburg ranks in the top 100 of 14 NCAA stat categories.

The Knights rank seventh in strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.25) and walks allowed/ nine innings (2.31), 18th in fielding percentage (.971), 21st in WHIP (1.26), 48th in ERA (3.79), 58th in batting average (0.317), 73rd in home runs per game (.61), 77th in home runs (17) and W/L percentage (.643), 79th in hits allowed/nine innings (9.06), 83rd in stolen bases (48), 91st in stolen bases per game (1.71), and 96th in on base percentage (.395).

Individually,one Knight ranks in the top 100 of two different categories as Thumann ranks 20th in home runs (8) and 25th in home runs/game (0.29).