Red Devils to Face Fontbonne in SLIAC Tournament Opener
CLAYTON, Mo. – This spring, the Eureka baseball team qualified for the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament for the third straight year and only the fourth time in program history.
On Tuesday at 12 p.m., the sixth-seeded Red Devils (12-23, 9-12 SLIAC) will take on third-seeded Fontbonne (25-15, 13-8) in a SLIAC Tournament quarterfinals matchup at Shaw Park for a shot at making it into the double-elimination rounds.
The Red Devils will be gunning for their first-ever SLIAC Tournament victory.
A year ago, the maroon and gold came tantalizingly close to knocking off third-seeded Spalding in Louisville. The Red Devils struck first and were tied 1-1 after seven innings of play, but the Golden Eagles managed to scrape together three more runs in the eighth and escape with a 4-1 win.
The year before that, when every team in the league automatically qualified for the tourney due to COVID rules, Eureka came up just short against Webster 5-2 and Greenville 7-6.
In 2010, when it was a four-team, double-elimination tournament, Eureka lost to Webster 8-5 before getting eliminated in a 4-3 loss to Greenville.
Can the Red Devils get over the hump and make program history this year? The last couple of weeks of the season suggest that it's certainly a possibility.
Eureka enters the postseason having won six of its past eight games, earning a three-game sweep of Blackburn and taking two out of three from Westminster in dramatic fashion in SLIAC play and ending the regular season with a strong, 9-4 non-conference win over Elmhurst.
The Red Devils finished the SLIAC slate with nine league wins, their most since the 2010 season.
"I think we've definitely turned a corner since the beginning of the season," Eureka junior pitcher Ryan Bredeson said. "I think we're playing the best baseball we've played all year right now, and hopefully that can continue.
"I know we have our guys pitching that we want to be pitching, and right now, we have an offense that I wouldn't want to face."
Fontbonne, meanwhile, didn't close the regular season as strongly as it would have liked. The Griffins dropped six of their last nine, getting swept by No. 1 Webster and No. 2 Spalding. If they had fared better, they could have made it into the top two and avoided the single-elimination round.
Instead, they'll have to earn their spot at advancement against the Red Devils.
Fontbonne leads the league in walks with 203 on the season and 111 in league play. The Griffins rank second in the league in on-base percentage (.429), but they are fourth in runs (341) and batting average (.320).
They're third in the league in extra-base hits with 145, including 97 doubles, 13 triples and 35 home runs.
Senior Matt Helm ranks second in the SLIAC in batting average and is slashing .432/.511/.684 with seven home runs and 48 RBI. Carter Lee leads the league with 13 home runs while hitting .298. Lee is second in the league in homers, while Helm and Lee are third and fifth in RBI with 48 and 47, respectively. Both players are seniors who are having the best season of their careers.
Four other starters are hitting .315 or above. Junior Colby Shivers is batting .383 with 37 RBI and a .584 slugging percentage. Senior infielder Ty Kueper is batting .359 with a .503 on-base percentage. Two other upperclassmen, senior Thomas Purschke and junior Kameron Brooks follow at .349 and .316, respectively.
Sophomore Gavin Kinworthy has led the pitching staff this season, tallying a league-high 96 strikeouts and eight wins while recording a 3.18 ERA in 79 1/3 innings pitched.
Junior Nick Glaser, who was voted SLIAC Pitcher of the Year last year, has 60 K's in 67 innings. Nolan Gutjhar (four saves), David Howard (three saves) and Camden Coleman (two saves) are 1-2-3 in the SLIAC in saves.'
Eureka has been led by its pitching this season.
Senior Nathan Garard, sophomore transfer Mike Dunne and Bredeson have all had their moments on the mound.
Dunne has been particularly effective lately, allowing one earned run on seven hits and posting 22 strikeouts in his last 17 1/3 innings pitched. He ranks third in the league in K's with 73 in 58 2/3 innings pitched.
Garard ranks fifth in the league with 60 strikeouts in 65 1/3 innings pitched, and Bredeson has record a career-best 4.98 RA with 39 strikeouts in 65 1/3 innings pitched. The trio has combined for 10 complete games.
Offensively, Eureka struggled for a good portion of the season, averaging just 4.9 runs per game while hitting .270 as a team. The Red Devils were much stronger at the plate at the end of the regular season, though.
In the last eight games, they reached double figures three times, and averaged 12.6 hits and 7.6 runs per game.
Sophomore shortstop Nick Rulevish is hitting a team-high .339 while scoring a team-high 25 runs and posting a team-best .397 on-base percentage.
Third baseman Chase Ulrich follows with a .322 batting average and a team-high 29 RBI. Center fielder Cole Tanner and Dunne are each hitting .316.
When the Red Devils and the Griffins met earlier this season at Fontbonne in March. The Griffins took two out of three. It was the first SLIAC series of the season for both teams, and two of the three games were competitive.
Fontbonne took a close, 5-2 opening game, then the Red Devils turned around and grinded out a 7-4 victory, with Bredeson throwing a compete game. The Griffins ended the series with a 14-2 rout.
"I think that the team they played at the beginning of the year is not the same team they're going to play this upcoming week," Bredeson said. "I think that we've made strides since we last played them, and I think we're ready to go on Tuesday."