This weekend the Butler baseball team will make the short trip to Cincinnati Ohio to take on Xavier in their first conference series of the season. The Bulldogs and Musketeers will clash in a three game series starting Friday morning. 

Weekend Schedule 
Friday, April 4: Doubleheader starting at 10AM
Saturday, April 5: 10AM
Sunday, April 6: Scheduled off day.  

With possible rain in the forecast the teams will play a doubleheader on Friday and a game on Saturday. If a game or games are rained out on either day, the teams will use Sunday to finish the series.  

Scouting Xavier
The Musketeers are 15-14 on the season and 6-1 on their home field. Last weekend, they took two of three against Uconn, which was their first conference series of the season.

Graduate student Nolan Tucker leads the team in batting average, slugging and ops. He is hitting .327 on the year, slugging .538, and has an ops of .960. In their last game Tuesday afternoon against Wright State, Tucker went 2-4 with a homer. That was his 3rd bomb of the season. Junior Isaac Wachsmann leads the team in home runs with 6. Wachsmann also has driven in 19 runs on the season, which is tied for second most on the team. 

Junior pitcher Ben Weber will come into the series against the Dawgs with a 3.63 ERA and a record of 3-2. Last Saturday against Uconn Weber threw 5.1 innings and picked up the win. Sophomore Ryan Piech has made 7 starts for Xavier so far this season and has turned in a 2-1 record with a 5.06 ERA. Piech's last outing was last Friday against Uconn where he pitched 5 innings giving up only 1 run. He also struck out 7 batters in that appearance, bringing his strikeout total on the season to 36, which leads the team. 

About Butler 
The Bulldogs are now 10-18 on the season and 7-17 away from Bulldog Park. After taking 3 of 4 from Northern Illinois over the weekend the Dawgs dropped their only midweek game of the week against Eastern Illinois on Tuesday afternoon. 

In the game against Eastern, Jack Moroknek picked up two more hits and another RBI on the season, bringing his RBI total to 37 on the season which leads the team. Moroknek's average now sits at .443. Senior AJ Solomon continued to stay the course Tuesday afternoon, he was 1 for 2 with a run scored and 3 walks. Tuesday's game brought Solomons average to .365 and his on base percentage to .500.  

Ryan Drumm Stays Hot
After hitting .409 last week with two home runs and 11 runs scored and receiving BIG EAST weekly honor roll honors, Ryan Drumm picked up another hit and another run scored in Tuesday's matchup against Eastern. Drumm has his average up to .303 and has scored 28 runs which is second most on the team.

Best in the BIG EAST
As the Dawgs enter BIG EAST play, Butler leads the conference in batting average (.313), doubles (55), home runs (43), and slugging percentage (.535).

Bulldog Bits

• AJ Solomon has reached base safely in 16-straight games
• Solomon has scored at least 1 run in the past 5 games
• Jack Moroknek has 18 multi-hit games this year and 9 games with multiple RBI's
• So far on the season as a team the Dawgs are hitting .312 and slugging .527 
• The Dawgs have had 10+ hits in their last 5 games 
• Nate Rosser pitched a 7-inning 116 pitches thrown complete game last weekend against Northern Illinois
• Rosser is 1-0 on the season and is pitching to a 3.43 ERA 
• Jack Bello has 17 multi-hit games on the season
• Tommy Townsend had his 8th multi-hit game on the season Tuesday against Eastern Illinois 
• Bello has 6 home runs on the year, which is tied for second on the team with Townsend
• With a hit in the Tuesday game vs Eastern Illinois Ryan Drumm extended his hitting streak to 10 games 
• Marcus Goodpaster leads the Dawgs in Strikeouts with 22
• Through 28 games Butler has 7 hitters hitting over .300 on the season
• Last season the Dawgs were 5-16 in conference play
• Jack Moroknek was named a PerfectGameUSA Midseason Second Team All-American earlier in the week
• As of April 1st Moroknek is 3rd in the country in slugging percentage (.899)

BIG EAST STANDINGS 
Xavier 15-14, 2-1
Uconn 12-15, 2-1
Creighton 17-7
Villanova 15-12
St John's 12-13
Seton Hall 12-17
Georgetown 10-18
Butler 10-18

Up Next
Butler will travel to Evansville for a Tuesday mid-week matchup on April 8th. Then next weekend the Dawgs will host the Villanova Wildcats.