LIBERTY, Mo. - The William Jewell baseball team returns to the GLVC tournament this week for the first time since 2017 as they take on Illinois Springfield in the opening round. 
 
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CARDINAL NOTES

• McKendree. Jewell won the tiebreaker over McKendree after going 2-2 against Maryville earlier in the season while the Bearcats went just 1-3 against MU.
• The 30-19 overall record is the most since 2016 for the Cards and is the third 30-win season of the NCAA era.
• Three players were named to the All-GLVC team on Wednesday as Anthony Hansen and Alex Epp were selected to the First Team, while Cameron Fliege was listed on the Second Team. The three selections are the most for the program since 2016. Hansen joins former catcher Garrett McKinzie (2016/2017) as the only position player to earn two First Team All-GLVC honors. 
• Fliege leads the team with a .404 average, followed closely by Epp at .399. The pair, along with Hansen and Jake Wilcox each have at least 70 hits and will battle it out for the opportunity to set the single season hits record at the end of the year. 
• The pitching staff continues to be led by Jake Sawyer and Jake MacDonald who each have ERAs under five with the latter boasting 69 strikeouts to lead the staff. 
• The Cardinal staff is tops in the GLVC and third in Division II with 13 complete games, two behind national leader Concord. MacDonald has a team best five complete contests while Jackson Bondison adds four.  
• Head coach Mike Stockton is in his 21^st season at the helm of the Jewell program in 2022. The second longest tenured coach in program history won his 600^th game earlier this season. 2022 marks the eleventh 30-plus win season of his career. 
   

ABOUT ILLINOIS SPRINGFIELD

• Illinois Springfield comes into the tournament as one of the hottest teams in the country, having won 21 of their last 23 and sitting at 39-8 overall, 19-5 in the conference. 
• The Prairie Stars lead the league in runs scored with more than 10 per game and are second in batting average with a team clip of .338. Zion Pettigrew was named the 2022 GLVC Player of the Year after hitting .408 with 66 runs, 78 RBI and and 22 home runs in the regular season. 
• The Star pitching staff is third in Division II with more than 11 strikeouts per nine innings while allowing 7.96 hits. Colton Hale and Quinn Gudaitis have combined for 18 wins on the mound while both have an ERA under four. 
• Ryan Copeland is in his third season as head coach and seventh overall on the staff having helped oversee a rise in the program since 2017, culminating in a 2021 GLVC Championship and Coach of the Year honor.