OCR Text |
Show T-birds face Tough "Utes" Tuesday hampers practices has made things even worse this spring. "What we want to do is , have everything together in time for the RMAC tournament tour-nament where we will be playing schools who more nearly work under the same conditions we face. A first or second place finish in the RMAC meet will give us a berth in the NAIA District Seven playoffs which we host," Jack points out. Statistically, SUSC is struggling with a .241 team batting average and a 7.81 earned run average given up by the team's pitchers. Individually, outfielder Tony Pappas (senior, Price) leads the hitting with a .323 average. He is also tops ont he squad in home runs (4), runs batted in (8), and total bases (24). He is tied with John Pappas (his brother, a junior from Price) in total hits (11) and with first baseman Russ Turner (junior, Las V.egas) in strikeouts. J. Pappas, (.305) and Curt Peterson, a sophomore from Cedar city ( .304) are the only -other regulars batting over .300. Catcher Gary Cowart (sophomore, Spanish Fork) is batting only .179, but he leads the team in runs scored, is tied with J. Pappas for the most doubles, and he has the best slugging average among regular players. Don Gubler (junior, Santa Clara) has the team's best earned run average, 3.09. Following in order are Todd Mortensen (junior, Sand-ford, Sand-ford, Colorado), 3.16; and Dave Middleton (freshman, Cedar City), 4.49. Middleton is the only lefthander among the ERA leaders. The opposition remains formidable for Southern Utah State College's baseball team in immediately im-mediately upcoming games. The Thunderbirds, who started the week with an unimpressive 1-9 record, travel to Salt Lake City to tangle y with University of Utah Tuesday (April 8) in a doubleheader. Then they return home for a pair of games April 10 with Lewis and Clark College. "Utah has beefed up its baseball program from what it has been in the last two or three years. They'll be tough for us to handle," Stan Jack, SUSC coach, indicates. Lewis and Clark is a regular power in NAIA baseball circles. Nearly every year the Pioneers from Portland, Oregon, dominate the Northwest baseball area. They were ranked 10th among NAIA baseball schools at the beginning of the season. "Our emphasis now has to be to get our team prepared for top performances in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference playoffs the first week of May," Jack ex-v plains. "Our regular schedule includes so many excellent baseball schools that it is unrealistic to expert, ex-pert, on, outstanding won-Iost record-iRad, weather which |