The Temple College baseball team returns to North Texas Junior College Athletic Conference play on Wednesday as the Leopards host Cisco College in doubleheader action at the Danny Scott Sports Complex.
First pitch will be noon, with pregame at 11:50 am on the Temple College PlaySight page.
Temple (20-11 overall, 6-2 NTJCAC) won a non-conference game on Monday at Alvin Community College, 6-3. The Leopards carry an eight-game win streak back into conference action. TC is hitting .268 with an on-base percentage of .382, has drilled 20 homers, drove home 146 runs, scored 166 times on 223 hits, collected 31 doubles, 11 triples, walked 138 times and have been hit 27 times.
Kade Davis (.447 BA, .569 OBP, four HR, 31 RBI, 38 hits, 26 walks, six triples), Wade Stallones (.342 BA, .478 OBP, ten RBI, 25 hits, 18 walks, 13 stolen bases), Elias Leon-Padilla (.327 BA, .393 OBP, three HR, 12 RBI), Chase Fricke (.272 BA, .388 OBP, five HR, 28 RBI) and Kash Millar (.271 BA, .350 OBP, two HR, 17 RBI) are among the top producers for the Leopards.
The team has committed 34 errors in 31 games for a fielding percentage of .963, down significantly from a year ago. That has led to the pitching staff lowering unearned runs allowed to just 19 through 21 games.
Temple's pitching staff earned run average is 4.91 down a full point over the eight-game streak with having allowed 23 runs (17 earned) over 56 innings.
Joseph McMurtry (5-0, 1.54 ERA, 48 strikeouts, 13 walks in 35 innings), Thomas Perez (3-1, 4.10 ERA, 26 strikeouts, eight walked), Peyton Reynolds (3-1, 5.93 ERA, 21 strikeouts, ten walks), and Davis (2-3, 7.50 ERA, 26 strikeouts, 19 walks) have gotten the majority of the starts for the Leopards.
Cisco (20-6 overall, 6-6 NTJCAC) is hitting .343 with an on-base percentage of .478. The Wranglers has drilled 43 homers, driven home 199 runs, scored 227 times on 239 hits, doubled 56 times, have four triples, have walked 151 times and hit by 40 pitches.
Xander Forsell (.468 BA, .625 OBP, eight HR, 19 RBI), Willie Cornejo-Farmer (.461 BA, .510 OBP, seven HR, 29 RBI), and Tori Martin-Rodriguez (.435 BA, .487 OBP, six HR, 22 RBI) have been the chief producers in the Cisco batting order.
The Wranglers have a staff earned run average of 6.31. Luke Holt (5-1, 4.15 ERA, 47 strikeouts, nine walks), Wesley Peck (4-0, 5.24 ERA, 35 strikeouts, 16 walks), Cade Segura (2-2, 9.30 ERA, 18 strikeouts, seven walks), and Louis Hertling (1-0, 4.70 ERA, 22 strikeouts, one walk) have received most of the workload on the mound for Cisco.
The conference outlook
With Temple having an early conference bye week, the Leopards are 6-2 in conference play. Weatherford is four wins up in the win column at 10-2 and 20-10 overall. Grayson is in second with a 9-3 conference mark and 15-11 overall. Temple is in third. Hill is in fourth place at 5-3 (19-8 overall), followed by MCC (7-5, 20-7 overall), Cisco (6-6, 20-6 overall), NCTC (2-6, 15-14 overall), Vernon (2-10, 15-16 overall), and Ranger (1-11, 12-19 overall).