D3baseball.com Team of the Week
WINONA, Minn. — The baseball season is just 10 games old, and already Saint Mary's University of Minnesota's
Ben Buerkle is making an impression—this time, on the national stage.
Just a day after being named the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Player of the Week, Buerkle—who hit an eye-popping .694 and owned a slugging percentage of 1.222 in the Cardinals' 10 spring trip games last week—was named to the D3baseball.com National Team of the Week, it was announced Tuesday.
Buerkle kicked off the best spring trip of his illustrious four-year collegiate career by going 2-for-5 and 4-for-4 in the Cardinals' sweep of Milwaukee School of Engineering—and the sweet-swinging senior never took his foot off the offensive gas pedal.
Buerkle followed up his season-opening 6-for-9 showing against MSOE with 3-for-3 and 2-for-4 efforts in a split against Wartburg. Buerkle put together two more 3-for-3 afternoons against Franklin and Finlandia, went 1-for-4 and 3-for-4 against Alma and Rockford, respectively, before ending the week with back-to-back 2-for-3 performances against both Capital and Coe.
All told, Buerkle went 25-for-36 en route to his .694 batting average, while also leading the team in runs (16), hits (25), doubles (5), triples (1), home runs (4), RBIs (11), total bases (44), slugging percentage (1.222), walks (7), stolen bases (4), and on-base percentage (.756).
With his second of his three hits against Rockford on March 3—a third-inning double—Buerkle became just the second player in program history to reach the 200 career-hit milestone. And with his 25 spring-trip hits, Buerkle moved within 15 hits of the school record of 220, held by
Willie Doll.
Fueled by his current 10-game hitting streak, Buerkle has now collected at least one hit in 119 of the 128 games he's played in—including 40 of his 41 spring-trip contests—while reaching base safely in 125 of those 128 career games.
The Cardinals (7-3 overall) are scheduled to return to action, weather permitting, on March 17-18, squaring off against Aurora, Wheaton (Ill.), and Cornell (Iowa) in Wheaton, Ill.
