BU sweeps NSAA weekly baseball honors

MADISON, S.D. -- The North Star Athletic Association has announced its fourth edition of the baseball weekly honors Monday. Bellevue swept the weekly award program with Derik Bontempo being named Player of the Week and Colten Barnes collecting Pitcher of the Week accolades.

Barnes was consistently good on the mound in his two starts last week for Bellevue, helping the Bruins to a perfect 7-0 week and improve their win streak to 21 games. In a pair of appearances Barnes was 2-0 with a 0.69 ERA and limited opponents to just a .156 batting average. He struck out 16 batters against just two walks over 13.0 innings of work.

The award is the first of his BU career for Barnes who allowed just one run on seven hits between his two starts and fired a complete-game 4-hit shutout in a 6-0 triumph over Presentation in the fourth game of this past weekend's series to help BU move 2.0 games ahead in the league standings.

Derik Bontempo continued to show why he's one of the best players in the NAIA this past week. The senior outfielder slashed an incredible .522/.480/1.000 over 23 at-bats and hit safely in all seven games the Bruins played. He recorded four multi-hit games including a three-hit game which featured a double and a home run against Presentation and another game in which he doubled and homered against York in mid-week action.

For Bontempo the award is the third time he's been named the league's Player of the Week during his two-year BU career. Last week he led the team in batting average, slugging percentage, hits (12), extra-base hits (6), RBI (9), and runs scored (7) on the week and has now reached base safely via hit or walk in 33 of 34 games this season.

The Bruins are currently riding a 21-game win streak, sit at 28-6 overall, and own an 8-0 mark NSAA play, two games ahead of a four-way tie in second place. Bellevue is scheduled to return to action on Wednesday, Apr. 5 with a 4 p.m. game against Midland at Westgate Field.