April 2, 2008

It's time for another edition of Gene's Team, the weekly roundup of the standout athletes here at St. Thomas University. It was quite the uneventful week for Bobcat fans with canceled tennis matches and only one baseball game at home. The Bobcats did win their game against Tennessee Temple by the score of 6-3. They also won a game on the road against Palm Beach Atlantic Tuesday night 14-7. On the road, the softball team won two games against Thomas University but dropped two close games to Northwood University. Here are your standout athletes over the past week:

Juan Santana - Santana makes the roster this week for his stellar performance in Tuesday night's rout of Palm Beach Atlantic. Although many players had stand out performances, Santana's 2 home runs put his performance ahead of the rest. Santana does not have many appearances on Gene's Team, but he is quietly putting up some of the best all around numbers on his team. Santana leads the team in batting average (.413), hits (45), runs scored (45), and stolen bases with 6. If that was not enough, he is also second to Nick Martinez in RBI's (26) and home runs (5).

Miguel Hernandez - Although there were a handful of good pitchers in the game against Tennessee Temple, starting pitcher Miguel Hernandez gets the roster spot. Hernandez pitched the first 3 innings of game and held the Crusaders to only 3 hits and 0 runs. As the season has progressed it is safe to say that Hernandez is one of the best pitchers in the Bobcat rotation. He has an ERA of 1.50 and has a .200 opposing batting average, the lowest of any Bobcat pitcher. Next up for Hernandez and the Bobcats will be an away game at Northwood University on April 2nd.

Gina Guffanti - In the weekend series against Thomas University Guffanti dominated by both pitching and hitting great. In the first game she pitched an outstanding complete game by only allowing 1 hit and racking up 8 strike outs. In the series Guffanti had a .375 batting average and had a total of 3 RBI's and 4 runs. Guffanti has been a monster this season in both hitting and pitching categories. She leads the team in runs scored (30) and RBI's (22) while also holding opposing batters to a team low .100 batting average. This Friday the Lady Bobcats will finally return home to play a 2-game series with Warner Southern at 2:00 PM.

Alejandro Velasquez - This past week the St. Thomas golf team competed in the Buccaneer Invitational and finished 12th overall. Although the overall finish was disappointing, nobody can be down about the play of Velasquez who tied for the second best individual score. He shot a decent 73 in each of the first two rounds but came back strong on the final day. Velasquez shot an amazing 67, 5 under par, and had the lowest score of any golfer on the last day. This was his fifth top ten finish of the season.