San Luis Obispo—The 2017 College Baseball Season comes to an end this week for the UC Riverside Baseball Team, as the Highlanders travel to Cal Poly for a three-game series beginning on Thursday, May 25.
At 7-14, UC Riverside is tied for seventh place in the Big West with UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine, and could finish as high as fifth with some help. The Mustangs (14-7) are tied for second in conference with Cal State Fullerton, while Long Beach State (18-3) clinched the top spot in the league last weekend.
View Big West Standings.
The Highlanders took two of three from the Anteaters over the weekend, before dropping a 10-6 decision to Oregon on Monday. The team's offense has come alive over the past five contests, averaging 8.4 runs per game.
Senior outfielder Mark Contreras continues to lead the team in all three slash line categories at .360/.422/.565. Those figures rank second, fourth and fifth respectively in the Big West. Contreras also leads the conference with eight triples despite missing most of the month of March with a hand injury.
Junior shortstop Colby Schultz is the other UC Riverside regular who is hitting better than .300 on the season with a slash line of .309/.386/.411. Freshman designated hitter Connor Cannon leads the team with eight home runs, although he has missed the last two weeks with an injury.
Right-hander Angel Landazuri (4-4, 5.27) makes the final start of his UC Riverside career on Thursday. He is coming off his best performance of the season in a May 20 appearance against the Anteaters. "Lando" tossed five innings of one-hit relief, while striking out seven without walking a batter.
Righty Ryan Lillie (2-6, 4.76) looks to add to his team-high strikeout total of 72 in 64.1 innings on Friday. His 10.07 Ks per nine innings are tops in the Big West.
Saturday's starter is TBD.
Cal Poly had a difficult start to its non-conference season, beginning the year with a 3-11 mark. The Mustangs recovered as Big West play began, and are now just one game below .500 overall at 26-27. They swept UC Santa Barbara last weekend, and took two of three from CSUN the weekend prior.
Cal Poly's .308 batting average against conference foes is tops in the Big West, and the 'Stangs 3.72 ERA is second only to Long Beach State.
Alex McKenna makes the Poly offense run. leading the Mustangs in all three slash line categories (.357/.422/.491). He also leads the entire conference in base hits (81), ranks third in runs (44) and fourth in stolen bases (12).
Cal Poly will throws right-hander Erich Uelmen (3-8, 3.22) on Thursday, righty Spencer Howard (7-1, 2.24) on Friday, and left-hander Trent Shelton (1-0, 2.50) in the regular season finale.
The Highlanders are 83-107 all-time against the Mustangs (
view results). The Highlanders took two of three from Cal Poly last season, but prior to that, Cal Poly won 23 of the previous 13 meetings between the clubs.
Â
