MIAA Tourney Early Rounds Preview
Washburn opens MIAA Tournament play with the first game of the weekend at 9 a.m., on Thursday, May 12 from the Lou Brock Sports Complex ... WU takes on sixth-seeded Northeastern State in the first round ... WU and NSU faced off in a three-game series in Tahlequah, Okla., early in the season (March 4-6) with the RiverHawks taking two-of-three, but it was just one of two series the Ichabods lost all season ... WU will look to even the season series with an opening round win, as the victor of Thursday's game will advance to face the winner of No. 2 Emporia State versus No. 7 Central Oklahoma on Friday, May 13 at 4 p.m. ... the losers of the two games will square off at 9 a.m., on Friday ... NSU (27-21, 21-17 MIAA) is hitting .288 as a team and has a 6.07 team ERA ... Eric Kirkpatrick is hitting .388 through 47 games with 16 doubles and 10 home runs ... Zach Parish (6-2, 4.10 ERA) is NSU's top starter ... Washburn took two-of-three from both ESU and UCO on the season ... ESU (35-15, 27-12 MIAA) enters the tournament with a .337 team average and a 4.38 combined ERA ... Dalton Wheat is hitting .411 and Evan Koehler has 22 home runs ... Tyler Stubblefield holds a 2.52 ERA with an 8-1 record and 81 strikeouts ... UCO (29-20, 21-17 MIAA) tied NSU for sixth in the conference but lost the tiebreaker ... UCO is hitting .316 as a team and has a 6.00 team ERA ... Jon Kamies leads UCO with a .396 average over 59 games, 17 doubles and 18 home runs ... Daulton Leiker (6-1, 4.52 ERA) leads the team with 77 strikeouts ... the MIAA Tournament bracket can be found on page 21 of the game notes.

Regular Season Recap
Winners of 30-plus games for the second consecutive season, Washburn finished third in the conference standings and had a 31-18 overall record with a 26-13 conference mark ... WU won 30-plus games in two straight seasons for the first time since 1985-90, when they strung together five consecutive 30-win campaigns ... the Ichabods played every conference team in three-game series during the season and lost just two, an early season 2-1 series defeat at Northeastern State and a 3-0 series defeat in the final weekend of play against Central Missouri ... 15-12 through the first two months of play, Washburn picked up steam in April and closed the month with a 31-15 mark, going 16-3 in the third month of the season with series sweeps over UNK, LWU and LU ... The Ichabods had winning streaks of seven and eight games (separately) in the season and saw Nick Silva earn MIAA Co-Pitcher of the Week on March 1.

WU in the MIAA Tournament
Washburn is making its third consecutive trip to the MIAA Tournament, having earned the No. 5 seed in 2015 in the first year under Harley Douglas ... WU swept Missouri Western in an opening round series last year and was one of the final three teams in the tournament, falling to NCAA qualifier Emporia State in a semifinal bout ... Washburn is 19-25 overall in the MIAA Tournament over 13 appearances, going 3-2 last season and 4-4 over the past two years.

NCAA Tournament Hopes
Washburn is in the hunt for its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance with three games remaining in the regular season and a conference tournament to go ... the NCAA Central Region Tournament is held May 19-22 at a site determined later ... WU was tabbed fifth in the first set of NCAA Division II Central Region Rankings, released Wednesday, April 27 and eighth in the second release (May 4 ... the Central Region is made up of teams from the MIAA, the NSIC and the GAC ... Automatic bids are granted to the winners of the postseason conference tournaments, with the final five seeds handed out on an at-large basis ... the complete regional rankings are found on page five of the game notes

Three-Headed Monster
Parker Gibson, Kyle Carnahan and David Gauntt are three seniors who will exit their Washburn careers as some of the most successful Ichabods in school history ... they rank among career leaders in several offensive categories and continue to climb record charts as their final season at WU crawls past the midway point ... those record lists where at least two of the three are listed in the Top 10 are below.
 

Career Home Runs List
Rank	Name	Home Runs
1	J.P. Wright	64
2	David Gauntt	42
3	Scott Greger	28
4	Terry Middendorf	25
	Jesse Schmidt	25
6	Kyle Carnahan	23
Career Steals List
Rank	Name	Steals
1	Michael Brock	112
2	Parker Gibson	91
3	Sam Sissom	90
4	Harley Douglas	75
5	Carvel Reynoldson	73
6	Kyle Carnahan	72
7	Brian Sodderberg	71
Career Hits List
Rank	Name	Hits
1	Parker Gibson	233
2	Sam Sissom	229
3	J.P. Wright	226
4	Pat Colley	223
5	Kyle Carnahan	217
Career Runs List
Rank	Name	Runs
1	J.P. Wright	197
2	Sam Sissom	188
3	Brian Sodderberg	184
4	Parker Gibson	175
5	Michael Brock	174
6	David Gauntt	169
7	Kyle Carnahan	166
Career RBI List
Rank	Name	RBI
1	J.P. Wright	228
2	Jesse Schmidt	158
3	Kyle Carnahan	144
4	David Gauntt	142
Career Walks List
Rank	Name	Walks
2	Sam Sissom	123
3	David Gauntt	105
	Michael Brock	105
5	Aaron Waltrip	97
6	Josh Haas	94
7	J.P. Wright	86
	Scott Greger	86
	Ryan Schmidt	86
10	Parker Gibson	84

Closing Time
Washburn's Lance Barkley has established himself as the Ichabods go-to pitcher in the ninth inning and has tied the single season school record for saves, with seven ... he is tied with Brigham Joy (2002), Chad Rodriguez (1996) and Travis Say (1997) and will look to set the record by himself next weekend at the MIAA Tournament ... Barkley is also within reach of  WU's career saves record of 10, set by Don Huss (1987, 89) ... for the season, Barkley has thrown 12.2 innings with a 2.13 ERA, allowing three earned runs with eight strikeouts.

Hit King
Washburn's win over Central Oklahoma on Sunday, April 30 proved to be a historic day for Ichabod centerfielder Parker Gibson, who tied the school's career hits record with a single in the first inning and broke it in the third, taking a 2-2 pitch into right field for his 230th hit in a Washburn uniform ... Gibson currently ranks 18th among active leaders in NCAA Division II with 233 career hits.

200 Hit/100 RBI Club
Parker Gibson and Kyle Carnahan became the fourth and fifth members of Washburn's 200 hit/100 RBI club this season ... Parker Gibson's two-RBI single against Missouri Southern in the fourth inning on March 26 was his 200th career hit ... his 100th career RBI came April 23 at Lincoln ... Carnahan joined the club with a two-run home run in the seventh inning at No. 19 Emporia State on April 13 ... his 100th RBI came last season at Missouri Western on May 1, 2015.

Mr. Consistent
One of the top catchers in NCAA Division II this season, David Gauntt has been a steady presence on base and behind the plate this season ... defensively, the Ichabod catcher has only five passed balls on the year and has thrown out base runners 18 times in 45 stolen base attempts ... at the plate, Gauntt has reached safely in all 49 games this season, which ranks first all-time at Washburn (since the 1999 season) ... Parker Gibson is also on the reached base safely record list (since 1999), seen below.
 

Reached Base Safely (since 1999)
Rk	Name (Years)	Streak (Gms)
1	David Gauntt (16)	49
2	Harley Douglas (99-00)	42
3	Fernando Esquivel (00)	41
4	Dylan Smith (02-03)	39
5	Cameron Clurman (01-02)	35
6	Michael Hammersmith (05)	33
7	Aaron Sanderholm (98-99)	31
8	Parker Gibson (16)	26
9	Sam Sissom (05-06)	25
10	Wes Joy (08-09)	24
	Pat Colley (00)	24

Junior Leader
Ichabod shortstop Riley Krane has quietly had one of the most successful years in Ichabod history ... the junior has matched his hit production from last season with 70 which leads the team and is just two short of joined WU's record list for single season hits ... additionally, Krane leads the team with 16 doubles (one shy of record top 10 list), six triples (tied 6th on top 10 list) and 49 RBI ... on the base paths, Krane has 10 stolen bases and in the field he leads the team with 131 assists ... Krane has already climbed into the top 10 of the career doubles list (No. 10 with 33), triples (No. 2 with 11) ... he is within reach of joining the career record lists for hits (150), home runs (11) and RBI (84) next season.

Gibson sets Career ABs record
Senior outfielder Parker Gibson claimed the school record for career at-bats last weekend in game one against Nebraska-Kearney on April 1, 2016 ... the senior entered the weekend with 662 career at-bats, tied for first all-time alongside Sam Sissom and now has 756 for his career at the close of the regular season ... he is currently eighth all-time among active players in NCAA Division II.

Running Wild
Washburn has torched the basepaths this season and has 127 stolen bases to lead the MIAA ... the closest team behind the Ichabods has 79 (ESU, UCM) ... the Ichabods rank fourth nationally (among DII schools) in total stolen bases, and are fifth in DII with 2.59 stolen bases per game ... individually, Kyle Carnahan leads the conference with 33 stolen bases and is sixth nationally, while Parker Gibson (28 stolen bases) is second in the MIAA and 22nd nationally ... in looking at stolen bases per game, Carnahan is eighth (0.70) and Gibson is 27th (0.57) ... in addition to Carnahan and Gibson, four other Ichabods have swiped eight or more bases on the year ... Carnahan and Gibson rank among the top 10 in WU's career record list, and Carnahan is currently sixth on the single season list at WU.

Going With Greg
When Washburn has made a call to the bullpen this season (and in the past four years), a majority of the calls have been to senior right hander Greg Mason, who has 80 relief appearances in four seasons (including 33 this season) ... Mason ranks fourth among active NCAA Division II pitchers in career relief appearances (and sixth in total appearances), and is now first all-time on Washburn's career record list for appearances ... this season, Mason leads the nation and conference in appearances  ... a quick glance at the MIAA record book has Mason four appearances away from tying the conference career record of 84 (set by Pitt State pitcher Ryan McKay, who finished his career last week) as MIAA Tournament play begins.

Active NCAA Career Leaderboard - HR
With 42 career home runs (and 17 this season), David Gauntt is currently third among active NCAA Division II leaders in home runs ... No. 1 on the list Alex Wojciechowski of Minnesota-Duluth with 50, and Mike McClellan of Columbus State has 47 ... at Washburn, Gauntt ranks second all-time on the career record list ... this season, Gauntt ranks 19th nationally with 17 home runs and is fifth in the MIAA ... last year with 16, Gauntt ranked 16th in the nation and had 0.3 home runs per game.

Steady Silva
Nick Silva (8-0, 2.39 ERA) leads the team in wins, innings pitched and strikeouts this season on the hill and has been consistent throughout his 13 starts ... the junior transfer has 59 strikeouts in 79.0 innings pitched on the year, allowing just 21 earned runs (and 26 total runs) ... Silva has gone at least five innings in 10 of his 13 starts and had shutout opponents twice ... seven times he has struck out at least five opponents ... in his last start, Silva went 8.2 innings with six strikeouts, allowing just two runs ... he had a complete game victory against Missouri Western earlier this season ... in the MIAA, Silva is first in ERA and second in wins and earned runs allowed.

Double Um Up
With 51 double plays on the defensive end, Washburn is averaging 1.04 double plays per game and ranks among the nation's best in that defensive category through 49 games ... Washburn is third in NCAA Division II and second in the conference in double plays turned, and third nationally (and first in the MIAA) in double plays per game.

Plate Vision
Payton Soicher and David Gauntt paced the Ichabods with 40 walks each (0.82 per game) and rank among the nation's best in those categories ... 40 walks ranks second in the MIAA and 20th nationally, while 0.82 walks per game is 22nd nationally and second in the MIAA ... as a team, the Ichabods have worked 236 total walks, which is 13th in NCAA Division II and fourth in the MIAA.

Scoring Frenzy
Washburn has scored in double-digits in 19 games this season and has been held to less than three runs in 10 games ... When scoring 10 or more runs, WU is 18-1 on the year (only loss came with 10 runs) ... The Ichabods are 29-10 in games it scores over the three-run mark and 2-8 in games it hasn't reached four runs.

Crowding the Plate
After breaking the school record last season with 90 hit-by-pitches, Washburn has been plunked 82 times on the year through 49 games, which ranks 10th nationally and first in the MIAA ... David Gauntt has been hit 19 times (ranking 9th nationally) and Kyle Carnahan has been hit 18 times this season and is 15th in NCAA Division II ... Gauntt and Carnahan are Nos. 1 and 2 in the MIAA and on the team ... Zane Mapes has been hit 10 times and is one of nine other Ichabods to have been hit at least three times ... the Ichabods ranked third in NCAA Division II last season in hit by pitches ... individually, David Gauntt was 11th nationally with 18 hit-by-pitches while Connor Crimmins (current student assistant coach) was 14th (17) and Carnahan ranked 30th (14).