Loyola baseball moves up in latest NAIA Top 25

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The third in-season Baseball Coaches' Top 25 Poll was released on Wednesday by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), and the Loyola Wolf Pack moved up four spots to No. 14 in the rankings.  
 

Loyola (26-10, 10-5 in SSAC) enters this week's Southern States Athletic Conference series with Blue Mountain Christian riding a four-game winning streak and winners of eight of its last nine games. Since the last poll was released two weeks ago, the Wolf Pack took two out of three from Mobile, defeated Xavier in a non-conference matchup, and swept Brewton-Parker Christian on the road. 
 

The Wolf Pack is currently tied for first place in the SSAC standings with No. 15 William Carey and No. 21 Abraham Baldwin. (RV) Faulkner, Tennessee Southern, and Thomas are all one game back, and Mobile is two games back to make the race for the regular-season title interesting. 
 

Loyola is the highest-ranked SSAC team. 
 

Jaxon Buratt (.384), Nathan McDonald (.353), JJ Garcia (.322), Drew Lee (.313), and Jed Cambre (.304) give Loyola five in the batting order who hit better than .300, with Jovan Swasey (.293) and Reed Duthu (.287) close to that number. McDonald leads the team with seven home runs, Buratt has a team-high 35 RBI, and Cambre has scored 39 runs and stolen 24 bags to pace the Wolf Pack offense. Buratt and McDonald are both tied for fourth in the SSAC for their home run and RBI marks, and Cambre leads the SSAC in stolen bases. 
 

Pitching-wise, Brady Bowen and Michael Hotard have anchored the weekend rotation, and James Guidry has emerged as another starter. Bowen is 4-1 with a 2.91 ERA, which ranks third in the SSAC, with 32 strikeouts in 43.1 innings. Hotard is 5-1 with a 4.04 ERA and 35 strikeouts in 35.2 innings, as his total wins rank fourth in the SSAC. Guidry has thrown 28 innings so far this season and is 3-1 with a 5.14 ERA and 24 strikeouts. Frank Fernandez has a 0.89 ERA in 20.1 innings in the setup role out of the bullpen, and Jake Cohen is 8-for-8 in save opportunities with a 0.63 ERA in 14.1 innings. His eight saves are a program record for a single season, and it's the most in the SSAC by four. 
 

As a team, Loyola is third in the SSAC with a 5.21 team ERA and fourth offensively with a .305 team batting average. The Pack also leads the SSAC with 129 stolen bases, and their .967 fielding percentage is second in the league. 
 

The Wolf Pack and the Toppers will begin their three-game series on Thursday with a doubleheader starting at 12 p.m. Game 3 will be at 1 p.m. on Friday.