THIS WEEK: After opening its Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference schedule last week at Wayne State, Minot State travels to Southwest Minnesota State for a four-game series beginning with a double-header on Saturday, March 28 and concluding with a double-header Sunday afternoon. Both days of competition are scheduled to begin at noon.
 
RECORDS: Minot State heads into the second series of NSIC play with an overall record of 4-11 and a conference record of 1-3. SMSU begins NSIC play this weekend with an overall record of 7-9.
 
COACHES CORNER: Minot State's Brock Weppler is in his eighth season as the head coach of the Beavers as the team enters its third season in NCAA Division II. In Weppler's first year in the NSIC, the Beavers were one of the top hitting teams in the conference, batting .295 as a team, good for fifth in the conference. Minot State has shown consistent improvement under the direction of Weppler since joining the NSIC, and the team is looking for its first NSIC postseason tournament appearance in 2015. Paul Blanchard is in his 19th season as the head coach at SMSU and is the program's all-time leader in wins. Blanchard has recorded 14 winning seasons during his time with the program and the team has claimed three NSIC tournament championships under his direction.
 
FOLLOW THE BEAVERS: Minot State provides live stats links on msubeavers.com and live tweets all home and away athletic events. Follow the Beavers on Twitter @msubeavers for live updates.
 
RANKINGS: Neither Minot State nor Southwest Minnesota State received votes in the latest top 25 poll released by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.
 
NOTING THE BEAVERS: Minot State traveled to Wayne State this past weekend in hopes of starting off NSIC play strong but the Beavers were outdone by the Wildcats who took three of the four games in the opening series. The Beavers' lone win came in game two on Saturday with Austin Zorn (Sr., P/INF, Bismarck, N.D.) on the mound. Zorn threw a complete game giving up three earned runs on his way to his second win of the season. The Beavers were efficient at the plate in the win scoring six runs on six hits, three of which were doubles. Kyle Williamson (Fr., OF, Aurora, Ore.) jump started the offense from the lead-off spot as he's done all season going 2-for-3 in the win with two runs scored and one RBI. Defense continued to plague the Beavers against Wayne State throughout the series as it's done all season. In just four games, the Beavers recorded 12 errors in the field. So far this season, Minot State has tallied three or more errors eight times.
 
NOTING THE MUSTANGS: After getting off to a slow start losing six of its first seven games, Southwest Minnesota State has settled in to the 2015 season winning four of its last six games including a split in its most recent four-game series last weekend with Northwestern College. Early on in the season, similarly to the Beavers, defense played a strong role in multiple games for the Mustangs. Before last weekend's series with Northwestern, SMSU had committed two or more errors in nine of its first 12 games this season. The Mustangs committed just one error total against Northwestern. Leading the way at the plate so far this season is Austin Stubbs who's batting .386 with 13 RBIs and 4 home runs. He's also scored 15 runs. On the mound, the Mustangs' bullpen is their biggest strength as three relief pitchers currently hold an ERA of 3.00 or lower.
 
PREVIOUS MATCH-UPS: Earlier this season Minot State and SMSU met at the Tucson Invitational for a pair of games and both teams walked away with a win apiece. In their first meeting, the Beavers had their way with the Mustangs as Austin Zorn (Sr., P/INF, Bismarck, N.D.) completed a strong seven innings of work giving up just one run and recording his first win of the season as the team went on to win 10-3. Two days later the teams met again and flipped roles, this time the game resulting in a 9-3 win for the Mustangs. A five-run ninth inning gave the Mustangs the edge.
 
FRESHMEN PHENOMS: Jared Young (Fr., 3B/1B, Marshall, Minn.) and Kyle Williamson (Fr., OF, Aurora, Ore.) have been instrumental at the top of the line-up so far this season for the Beavers and they've hardly looked like freshmen. Young is batting .414 on the season with 18 RBIs, good for sixth in the NSIC. Before ending his streak in the final game of the Wayne State series, Young was riding a 10-game hitting streak. Williamson has filled the lead-off spot nicely for the Beavers batting .379 and has an even more impressive on-base percentage of .486. He's recorded six extra-base hits, second to only Young on the team.
 
OFF TO A QUALITY START: Despite an inflated ERA due to a rough start against No. 5 ranked St. Cloud State, Austin Zorn (Sr., P/INF, Bismarck, N.D.) has recorded a quality start in three of his four starts so far this season for the Beavers. Holding a 2-1 record, Zorn has yet to walk a batter in 23.0 innings pitched and has completed the most innings on the team. Zorn was selected as the Beavers' Pitcher to Watch at the beginning of the season by the NSIC.
 
OFFENSIVE DIFFERENCES: As a team, Minot State is batting .283, good for ninth in the NSIC but teams are batting an impressive .344 against the Beavers, the sixth-highest batting average against in the conference. Minot State has recorded 25 doubles while surrendering 37. The Beavers have recorded 140 hits and given up 182. As for runs batted in, the Beavers have recorded 77 RBIs, good for ninth in the conference.
 
HITTING NOT A PROBLEM: In 15 games so far this season, Minot State has recorded a double-digit hit total in seven of those games, while the team has not recorded fewer than five hits in a game. The team's highest hit total came against Dakota Wesleyan as they recorded 16 hits while scoring 21 runs.
 
 
BY THE NUMBERS
1: Minot State hosts its first home series of the season one week from Friday. The Beavers will welcome the Upper Iowa Peacocks for a four-game series.
 
11: The Beavers currently have the fourth-most home runs as a team in the Northern Sun with 11. Minot State's highest single-game total this season is 3 (3/12, Simpson College).
 
.925: Minot State's fielding percentage of .925 is the lowest fielding percentage in the NSIC. The Beavers have committed 42 errors, the third-most in the league.