Baseball sweeps NSAA Weekly Awards
Conner Barnett was named NSAA Player of the Week for the second time this season and Elijah Johnson picked up his fourth-straight NSAA Pitcher of the Week honor.
BISMARCK, N.D. -- For the second time this season, the duo of Conner Barnett (Papillion, Neb.) and Elijah Johnson (Omaha, Neb.) have swept the North Star Athletic Association's weekly awards program.
Barnett earned NSAA Player of the Week honors for the second time this season. Barnett hit .538 over the weekend, scoring seven runs, stealing two bases, and hitting a pair of home runs. Defensively, he came up with two of the biggest plays of the series as he threw out a pair of runners at the plate from right field.
For the season, Barnett is hitting a team-leading .405 and has posted an OPS of 1.041 while totaling eight extra-base hits, 16 RBI, and 27 runs scored. Additionally, he is a perfect 7-for-7 in stolen base attempts and now has six outfield assists.
Johnson picked up NSAA Pitcher of the Week honors for the fourth-straight week. In the second game of Saturday's double-header, he fired seven innings of one-hit, shutout ball and struck out a career-high 14 batters.
On the year, Johnson is now 5-1 with a 1.43 ERA. He has struck out 68 batters in 44 innings (13.91 K/9) and only walked 14 for a 4.9 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He has yielded just 19 hits and has only allowed multiple hits in three innings.
The 10th-ranked Bruins have won four-straight thanks to a weekend sweep of Viterbo to improve to 17-7 on the year and sit atop the conference standings at 4-0. The Bruins return home this weekend to host Valley City State University for a four-game NSAA series from John Stella Field at Brown Park. Saturday's double-header begins at 1 p.m. with Sunday's scheduled first pitch for noon.