AN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013
PAGE 11B
OPENING DAY
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Jozwiak
BASEBALL PREVIEW
Kansas baseball will play against Nevada this weekend
BATTING
COACHING
The Jayhawks return all three weekend starters while adding Tanner Poppe to the rotation for the 2013 season. Frank Duncan's instinctive pitching style leads the Kansas rotation after maintaining a 3.23 ERA with 100 strikeouts in his 6-8 campaign last season. Sophomore Wes Benjamin and senior Thomas Taylor round out the weekend rotation with senior Tanner Poppe making the move from the bullpen to the starting rotation this season.
Coach Ritch Price is in his 10th season as the Jayhawks' head coach. In his tenure at Kansas, Price is 323-284 with 66 wins over ranked opponents. Price has coached 44 professional draft picks, 26 all-conference players and 52 academic all-conference selections. The Sweet Home, Ore. native came to Kansas from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif., in 2003.
PITCHING
The Jayhawks are lead by captains Alex DeLeon, Jordan Dreiling and Kevin Kuntz. Last year Kuntz started all 58 games at stopstop, batting .251 with three doubles, two triples and 29 runs scored. Jordan Dreiling makes the move to third base for his senior season. Dreiling hit .301 last season with no errors in 45 appearances. Coach Price moved Kaiana Eldredge from second base to catcher, a position Eldredge once played in high school, for the 2013 season.
PLAYER TO WATCH
Ka'iana Eldredge, catcher
Eldredge makes the move from second base to catcher. Eldredge, a junior from Honolulu, made the 2011 Big 12 All-Freshman team making 41 starts at second base and seven at catcher. Last year Eldredge struggled at the plate, batting .185 with three doubles and 18 runs scored as a sophomore. Eldredge is still making the adjustment to life behind the plate.
Eldredge
BATTING
The Wolf Pack are fortunate to return their top four batters and six of their top eight for the 2013 season, losing only Joe Kohan and Garrett Yrigoyen. Nevada is going to see a lot of power-hitting from Brooks Klein, Hugo Hernandez, Ray McIntire and Kewbey Meyer. Nevada won 13 of its 23 one-run games last year and want better batting to try and win more close games.
COACHING
Gary Powers enters his 31st year as the coach of Nevada, his alma mater, and has compiled an overall record of 912-730-5. With two big pitchers in Bradley Shipley and Tom Jameson on the team, Powers wants to see his team improve from last years 32-25 record. Powers has taken four Wolf Pack teams to NCAA Regional appearances in 1994, 1997, 1999 and 2000. He's also earned three Big West Conference Coach of the Year awards, a WAC Co-Coach of the Year award, two BWC titles and two divisional titles.
PLAYER TO WATCH
Bradey Shipley, pitcher
Bradey Shipley is predicted to be one of the top 15 players selected in the upcoming MLB draft. The right-handed pitcher has a lethal arm and had 88 strikeouts. He finished the 2012 season with an ERA of 3.23. Shipley was named to First Team All-WAC and also earned the WAC Pitcher of the Year award. Kansas batters know they can expect a lot of pitches to come their way in the 90s.
PITCHING
Nevada allowed nearly 300 runs last season with 25 percent of those runs being given up in the first agil ninth innings. Early on in games, the Wolf Pack faced early deficits after allowing 41 runs in the first and third innings. The bullpen had a hard time controlling opposing batters after it allowed 31 runs in ninth innings in 2012. Powers pitching coach Pat Flury must work with their pitchers to prevent them from allowing a lot of runs and improve from last year's production. With Bradie Shipley and Tom Jameson as the team's top two pitchers, Nevada can expect to allow fewer runs and help the Wolf Pack get off to better starts to games this season, starting with Kansas on Friday when Shipley takes the mound
Farzin Voughshian Trevor Graff
2012-13 KANSAS BASKETBALL
VS. OKLAHOMA FEBRUARY 17 @ 1:30
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