SAN ANTONIO – The Trinity baseball team is headed for an eight-game road trip that will begin with a three-game Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference series at the University of Dallas this weekend, and will continue with a Tuesday non-conference matchup at Concordia University (Texas).
The Tigers will play 12 of their final 15 regular season games on the road, interrupted only by a three-game home series against Schreiner (Apr. 21-22). Trinity has only been on the road for four of its 25 games so far this season.
Following a tough stretch during which Trinity lost four out of five games, the team locked in to earn its SCAC series sweep of Centenary last weekend. The sweep was punctuated by an 11-inning walk-off victory in the series finale on Saturday evening, putting the Tigers alone in second place in the conference standings.
The Tiger offense is led by junior outfielder
Jack Peterson (Round Rock, Texas / Round Rock), who is hitting .324 (23-for-71) with 16 runs score and 10 RBI. He holds a .438 on-base percentage bolstered by a team-leading 14 walks, and he has also swiped a team-best 17 steals this year. Seniors
Michael Montrezza (Los Gatos, Calif. / Leigh) and
Ezra Gore (Dallas, Texas / McKinney North) are both hitting over .300 this season. Montrezza also holds an on-base percentage above .400, while Gore leads Trinity with 21 runs scored and 17 RBI. Junior
Hunter Nevilles (Corpus Christi, Texas / Calallen) and senior
Tyler Pettit (Round Rock, Texas / Round Rock) are both hitting over .350 this season and have combined for 16 runs and 21 RBI, playing in just 13 of the team's 25 games so far.
Trinity's pitching staff has tallied a 3.61 team ERA so far this year and is holding opponents to a .227 batting average. Junior
Joseph Chavana (Laredo, Texas / Alexander) leads the team with a 2.34 ERA and improved his record to 3-3 after earning a series-opening victory over Centenary last week. Sophomore
Jack Martinez (Corpus Christi, Texas / Ray) leads the Tigers with 46 strikeouts in just 25.1 innings, posting a 2.84 ERA and a 3-0 record. Sophomore
Jackson Teer (San Antonio, Texas / Johnson) has a 5-1 in his seven starts this season and is holding teams to a .218 batting average against him. Juniors
Cade McGahan (Davidson, N.C. / Hough) and
Harrison Durow (Dallas, Texas / Lovejoy) are both sporting an ERA under 3.00 and all five Tigers mentioned here have struck out at least 34 batters this season. As a team, trinity has 261 strikeouts in 222 innings pitched.
NCAA III Rankings: Tigers Drop out of Top 25
Despite sweeping Centenary in the three-game weekend series, the stretch of four losses in five games contributed to knocking Trinity out of the top 25 in this week's D3baseball.com poll. Prior to this week's poll, the Tigers had been featured in every top 25 ranking since the 2017 season.
Trinity is still receiving votes and is the first team outside of the rankings, with fellow SCAC school Southwestern University also getting more attention in the receiving votes list. Birmingham-Southern remains the top-ranked team and received 17 of the 25 first-place votes. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges (Calif.) is the lone team from Region 10 that is still ranked in the top 25.
On Deck: Dallas (Apr. 7-8) and Concordia (Apr. 11)
The upcoming schedule puts Trinity on the road for a three-game SCAC series against the University of Dallas, as well as a newly-added road contest at Concordia University (Texas). The series against Dallas begins with a doubleheader on Friday, followed by a single game on Saturday, and both days will begin at Noon. The Concordia game will be on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. in Austin.
During the SCAC era (since 1991), Trinity is 47-5 against Dallas overall and has won 24 consecutive games in the series. The last loss to the Crusaders came in the 2014 season. The Tigers are also 18-3 on the road in the series. This season, Dallas is 14-12 overall and coming off of a three-game sweep of Austin College to improve to 5-4 in SCAC play. Dallas has won the opening game of the series against all three SCAC opponents this year, earning wins over both Southwestern and Centenary in addition to Austin. First-year pitchers Dylan Krause and Dominic Gill have combined to make nearly half of the team's starts this season. Krause leads the team with a 2.84 ERA and a 5-0 record, recording 46 strikeouts in 38.0 innings. Gill holds a 3.46 ERA along with a 4-3 record, striking out 30 batters and giving up just four walks. Offensively, Austin Birkhoff leads the team with a .343 batting average, scoring 14 runs, driving in 17 RBI, and recording 12 steals. Jake Amoroso is hitting .338 with 23 runs scored and 10 steals, while Caleb Hohman has scored 22 runs, leads the team with 18 RBI, and has drawn a team-best 23 walks.
Tuesday's game will be the 30th meeting between Trinity and Concordia with the Tigers leading the series with a 16-13 record. The Tigers have won three of the last four meetings (since 2020) – including a 15-5 victory last season – and have a slight 10-9 edge in games at Concordia. Julian Swift and Chris Morrow are both hitting above .350 to lead the Tornados on offense, with Morrow leading the team with 17 runs and 21 RBI. Dakota Palmer holds a 3.05 ERA and a 3-2 record, while Otto Franz is 5-2 with a team-best 51 strikeouts. Concordia heads into the holiday weekend with a 16-11 overall record and will be on the road at the University of Ozarks this weekend.
In the Hole: at Southwestern (Apr. 14-15) and at UT-Dallas (Apr. 18)
Next weekend will be another SCAC series on the road as the Tigers and Southwestern will face off in a single game on Friday, then a doubleheader on Saturday. Heading into this weekend's action, Southwestern is in first place in the SCAC standings, leading Trinity by one game with an 8-1 conference mark. The Tigers will end their eight-game road trip at the University of Texas-Dallas on Tuesday, April 18, in an afternoon game that begins at 3:00 p.m.
