RUSSELLVILLE – The Arkansas Tech baseball team is looking to keep their solid start to Great American Conference play going this weekend as they hit the road to Monticello to take on the Arkansas-Monticello Boll Weevils in a three-game series.
The Wonder Boys are coming into the weekend series 5-1 in GAC play and 7-5 overall. This past weekend, the Wonder Boys made their long-awaited home debut and took two of three from the No. 10-ranked Southern Arkansas Muleriders. The first game of that series saw the Wonder Boys fall behind 4-0 in the blink of an eye without recording an out in the top of the first. Despite that early hole, the Wonder Boys rallied back and beat SAU 10-6. In the second game of the series, the Wonder Boys walked-off the Muleriders 6-4 on a two-run home run by Evan Hafley. SAU would stave off the sweep with a win in the finale.
Prior to the big series victory over SAU, the Wonder Boys opened up GAC play with an emphatic three-game sweep of East Central.
As a team, the Wonder Boys enter the weekend at UAM batting .287 as a team and have four lineup regulars hitting .300 or better. After a solid weekend at the plate against SAU, Hafley is now the Wonder Boys leading hitter in terms of average at .405 (17-for-42). He is second on the team in home runs with two and RBIs with 10. Both Jonathon Arrieta and Josh Detweiler lead the team in homers with three each. Arrieta currently leads the team with 11 RBIs.
On the mound, the Wonder Boys have been a handful to deal with. Sporting a team ERA of 4.41, the Wonder Boys as a staff have recorded 120 strikeouts in 96.0 innings of work. The three weekend arms of the Wonder Boys comprised of Hayes Cox, Patrick Miner and Riyan Rodriguez have accounted for 62 strikeouts in 60.1 innings of work.