The UBC Thunderbirds baseball team will face their biggest test of the young season this weekend when they host the perennial powerhouse Lewis-Clark State Warriors at Nat Bailey Stadium.
The teams kick off their four-game series at 2 p.m. on Friday. A Saturday doubleheader will begin at noon, and they wrap up action at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
After struggling on their season-opening exhibition tour of California, the T-Birds got back on track just in time for conference play, thanks in large part to the efforts of White Rock Tritons product Nick Senior.
The T-Birds are 6-0 in conference play, coming off series sweeps of the College of Idaho and Corban College. Senior belted two home runs against Corban last week, and is leading the team with a .455 batting average and six RBI in conference games.
Senior is in his second season with the team. He earned the starting right fielder’s job for 2011 after appearing in about half of UBC’s games last year.
LC State will bring an 11-3 overall record to the Nat this weekend, though they are a surprising 3-2 in conference play after Concordia College upset them twice last week. They sit in second place behind UBC in the Cascade Collegiate Conference standings. UBC was 1-5 vs LC State last year.
The Warriors’ program has been a virtual pro baseball player factory for decades, having churned out 117 professionals in its history.
This will be UBC’s first home action of the season, and they face another extended road trip after this weekend, not returning to Nat Bailey until April 1 against Corban.