The Wayne State baseball team was picked eighth in the 2017 NSIC Preseason Baseball Coaches Poll released earlier this week.
The Wildcats return four starters from last year’s team that was 15-28 overall and finished ninth in the NSIC with a 12-16 league mark.
For the seventh time in the last eight years, Minnesota State was selected as the team to beat in the NSIC this season after receiving 10 first place votes. St. Cloud State, last year’s NSIC tournament champions, were second with four first place votes. Augustana came in third, followed by Concordia-St. Paul and Minnesota Duluth who received the remaining first place vote.
Senior third baseman Cody Jenkins and senior starting pitcher Bobby St. Pierre have been tabbed as Wildcats to Watch in the NSIC this season.
Jenkins, a 5-foot-11 200-pound senior from Englewood, Colorado, is Wayne State’s position player to watch in the NSIC this season. Last year, Jenkins posted a .337 batting average with five home runs and 29 RBI. He ranked second on the team in hits (55) and doubles (13) and was third on the team with 15 multi-hit games.
St. Pierre is a 6-foot-3, 225-pound senior from Windsor, Ontario listed as Wayne State’s pitcher to watch this season. A transfer from Madonna University in Michigan, St. Pierre will move to a starting pitcher for the Wildcats after recording 24 saves, a 4-1 record and 1.48 ERA the last two seasons as a closer. He helped Madonna reach the NAIA World Series last season.
Wayne State is scheduled to open the 2017 baseball season on Saturday, Feb. 18 at Newman University in Kansas for a doubleheader starting at 12 p.m.
