ASHLAND, Wis. – The Northland College Baseball team will play its final series of the 2023 season as they host Martin Luther Colleg in a three-game Upper Midwest Athletic Conference series at LumberJack Field. The series starts on Saturday with a 3 p.m., start followed by a doubleheader on Sunday with first pitch at noon.
 
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The Knights are 5-26 overall and 2-16 in the UMAC. Last week MLC was swept by Crown College in conference play. Their last win came on April 21 when they defeated North Central University 11-1 at home. Senior Mason Cox leads the UMAC batting .470 over his 30 games played. Cox has 54 hits, eight doubles, six triples, five home runs, and a team-high 29 RBIs. The two main pitchers for MLC are Connor Heckendorf and Matt Rieger who have a 7.26 and 7.65 ERA respectively.
 
The Jacks have a slight edge over the Knights in the overall series 20-to-16. Last season NC and MLC played each other four times with Northland winning three of the four. Andrew Birko earned a win in the series going six innings and did not give up an earned run. Anthony Boyle earned the save in that game pitching the final three innings and only gave up one hit.
 
The Jacks started last week with a conference series against North Central. Northland fell in the three-game series to the Rams but followed it up by splitting the series against the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Senior Zach Ross hit two home runs to now be tied for third in the program with 12 career home runs. Peyton Solberg earned the save in the 7-5 winning and Andy Linder earned his second win of the season.
 
For qualified batters, Tyler Murphy leads the team batting .308 but without the two plate appearances per game, Luke Maxwell is on top batting .409 in his 22 at-bats. Maxwell hit his first career home run in the win over the Blue Devils. Ross shot up top second on the with a.258 batting average after going 3-for-5 at the dish in Stout. Ross reached 100 career hits last week.
 
Solberg has gone 13 innings without giving up an earned run, dropping his ERA to 2.92. He has held batters to a batting average of .189, second best in program history behind Carson Ferry's .119 in 2019. Vinny Troccoli leads the team in strikeouts with 20, Solberg and Kazdion Mount are one behind at 19.
 
Northland College is an NCAA Division III institution located in Ashland, WI. The LumberJacks and LumberJills sponsor 14 varsity sports and compete in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference, Midwest Lacrosse Conference, and the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.