Morning Stock Report: April 15, 2019

Happy Monday, everyone! You’ll see a bit of a difference in today’s stock report but it wont change how we operate; this is still a daily…

Happy Monday, everyone! You’ll see a bit of a difference in today’s stock report but it wont change how we operate; this is still a daily monitoring of who is hot and who is not across WKU sports.

Rising

Offense

If you love offense, this weekend was great for you. Saturday’s spring game showed us what we have been missing from the last two years of football as, under Tyson Helton for the first time, WKU’s two sides combined for 612 passing yards and nearly 700 overall.

But, it wasn’t just on the gridiron.

The Lady Toppers softball squad racked up eight runs in a five-inning win over North Texas while the Baseball Tops put 16 runs on the board to defeat Marshall.

Softball

Speaking of Amy Tudor’s squad, they continue to roll. WKU has won four of their five Conference USA series (the lone loss coming against Marshall two weekends ago) and used their offensive surge to win the rubber game of their series this past weekend against North Texas.

The Lady Tops sit at 12–3 in conference play and with a win Wednesday in the first game against Texas Tech, they’ll hit 30 wins before double-figure losses.

WKU owns the league’s second-best batting average (.296 — and they’ve done so in six fewer games than the league-leader in the category, Louisiana Tech), have hit the third-most home runs in the conference (36 — again, with fewer games played than the top two teams in the category) and own the best slugging percentage (.497) and fielding percentage (.972).

While WKU doesn’t boast the best ERA, surprisingly, they are second with a 2.63 clip and lead the league in shutouts with 12.

Falling

Baseball Pitching

I caught a bit of flack on Twitter for saying this on Saturday but I’m going to say it again — someone needs to fix the Hilltopper pitching staff.

Against Marshall, the Tops allowed 8, 11 and 11 runs, needing 16 runs of their own the defeat the Herd and avoid a sweep.

The Tops continue to boast the worst ERA in Conference USA at 6.33, and have allowed seven or more runs in their last seven contests and in nine of their last 12 overall.

Recruiting

After having so many recruiting wins over the last couple of years with the prospect machines that are Rick Stansbury and what was Mike Sanford, the Hilltoppers lost out on three recruits this weekend.

The biggest name was that of South Carolina transfer running back Ty’Son Williams who announced on Sunday that he would be transferring to BYU for his final year of eligibility. While not a statistical dream, he did grab four scores on just 70 rushes rushes a season ago, but is also a pass-catching back that the Hilltoppers could have found more than enough to do with.

On the hardwood, the Tops lost out on Sean McNeil, who announced he’ll be going to West Virginia. McNeil, a Kentucky native, had the Tops in his final six, along with the likes of Dayton, Texas Tech and Oregon, before picking the Mountaineers. He averaged 29.7 points while shooting nearly 50% from the floor at Sinclair Community College. A great eye for the hoop that the Tops surely could have used is now off the board.

Finally, WKU lost out on Sydneey Boykin, a great scorer from Tennessee, who committed to Mercer over the weekend. She’d be a part of the Lady Tops’ 2020 class, which is waiting for their first commit.