The Team of the Week is D3baseball.com's weekly honor roll, in its seventh season of recognizing the top performers at each of nine positions from the previous week. Players are selected from nominations from their school's sports information directors. This is the tenth Team of the Week of the 2018 season.
Games of April 9-15, 2018
C Austin Parent, Jr., Pitt.-Bradford
With five home runs and 14 RBIs in five games, Parent put together a red-hot week. Two of his home runs were grand slams, and he hit three dingers in one day at Pitt-Greensburg Saturday. He scored a run in each game, totaling 13 overall. His power numbers helped the Panthers to a 4-1 week in conference games. With seven extra-base hits, his slugging percentage for the weekend was 1.304. Behind the plate, he threw out one of two runners attempting to steal.
1B Matthew Macey, Sr., Whittier
Macey was the force behind the sweep of the CalTech Beavers putting up career and record numbers over the three games. He batted .818 (9-for-11) with an OB% of .857, while slugging 1.455. He had four extra base hits and 16 total bases, which included two doubles, a triple, and a home run. He scored five times and drove in eight along with drawing three walks and finished the weekend with a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage.
2B Blake Strebler, Sr., Westminster (Mo.)
Strebler went 8-for-17 (.471) on the week with seven runs scored, seven RBI, four home runs, and a 1.235 slugging percentage. Each of his homers were hit in the same game, including a grand slam, to hand regionally ranked Spalding its first conference loss of the season. Strebler's four homers breaks the Westminster gameday record for home runs in a single game, and ties an NCAA Division III record that hasn't been achieved since 2009.
SS Matt Koperniak, So., Trinity (Conn.)
Koperniak batted .588 (10-for-17) with a .667 on-base percentage and a 1.176 slugging percentage in four games. He scored six runs and drove in six. He opened the Colby series by going for the cycle where he singled twice, doubled, tripled, and then homered in his final at-bat on the ninth inning.
3B Brett Taff, Jr., Austin
Taff had a huge weekend for Austin as the 'Roos took two out of three games in a crucial conference series against Southwestern. The junior from Amarillo belted two home runs on the weekend, drove in 10 and scored nine times. He also earned a win on the mound in his first start of the season, going 6.0 strong innings and striking out four batters in an 11-3 result on Sunday. Taff batted .545 (6-for-11) for the weekend, with a .661 on-base percentage and a robust 1.091 slugging percentage.
OF Connor Bailey, Jr., Willamette
Bailey had 12 hits in 21 at-bats for a slash line of .571/.640/1.381 for Willamette on the week. He scored 11 runs and drove in 12 in five games for the Bearcats.
OF Jackson Gessell, Sr., Minn.-Morris
In a doubleheader sweep of Crown (Minn.), five of Gessell's six hits were doubles. He scored three runs while also driving in three. Gessell ended up batting .667 (6-for-9) and slugging 1.222.
OF Daniel Zeglen, Jr., Rochester Institute
Zeglen hit two home runs and drove in a career-high five runs in RIT's 10-1 win over St. Lawrence. It was the first two-home run game of his collegiate career. Zeglen slammed a three-run home run to put the exclamation mark on a six-run fourth inning and hit a two-run shot in the sixth inning.He hbatted .667 (2-for-3) and slugged 2.667
DH Thomas Craig, Jr., Texas-Dallas
Craig went 8-for-13 (.615) from the plate with nine runs scored and eight RBI as he led the Comets to a perfect 5-0 record last week. Witha home run and two doubles, he slugged an even 1.000.
SP Christian Dufresne, Sr., Cortland
Dufresne tossed a no-hitter with a career-high 10 strikeouts and just one walk over nine innings in an 8-1 win vs. Elmira. The lone run he allowed came via an error, sac bunt, groundout and wild pitch. Dufresne's no-hitter was the 19th in school history and just the third nine-inning no-no by a Red Dragon.
SP Jack Herzing, Sr., Penn St.-Behrend
Herzing's pitching performance is going to be one to remember after breaking the Penn State Behrend school record for most career strikeouts, along with throwing a no-hitter against Hilbert. On the week, he struck out 31 batters and allowed just one hit on 14 innings of work. In game one against Hilbert, threw a no-no he where he struck out a 15 of the total 21 batters he faced, and retired the side himself on three separate occasions. Then on Friday, Herzing put on a strikeout clinic in a 7-0 win over Alfred State.
SP P.J. Mikulus, Sr., Washington College
Mikulus tossed his first career no-hitter and the first nine inning no-hitter for the Shoremen in 48 years in Washington's 7-0 win over Dickinson in game one of Saturday's doubleheader. Mikulus retired the first 13 batters and the last 14 hitters he faced as only a fielding error in the bottom of the fifth separated him from a perfect game. He struck out seven hitters as he tied his career long for innings pitched. The senior tossed his second career shutout and third all-time complete game in the victory.
SP Ryan Pordes, Sr., Suffolk
Pordes was nearly perfect in his lone start of the week. The senior from Hawthorne, California, took a perfect game into the top of the fifth before allowing just a pair of hits and one hit-by-pitch the rest of the way in a seven-inning, complete-game shutout over Johnson & Wales. Pordes, who sat down five batters in the conference victory, threw this first complete-game shutout of the season and second of his career in Suffolk blue-and-gold.
RP Bobby Tramondozzi, Jr., Mass.-Boston
Recorded back-to-back saves to lead UMass Boston to a sweep of UMass Dartmouth. He went a total of 2.1 innings in Saturday's sweep and allowed just one hit. Tramondozzi pitched out of a bases loaded jam in game one of Saturday's doubleheader, before collecting the third out of game two with one pitch.