Contact: Drew Sauer, Assistant Sports Information Director, 630-637-5324
CCIW Press Release
Feb. 25, 2020 – In the first installment of the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) Baseball Player of the Week awards,
Charlie Klemm was named Pitcher of the Week and
Justin Rios earned Hitter of the Week honors after leading the North Central College baseball team to a 3-0 opening weekend.
Klemm has now been named Pitcher of the Week in each of the last three seasons and this marks his fourth overall weekly award by the conference. Klemm tossed six innings of no-hit ball in the Cardinals' 16-1 win over Wilmington College on Feb. 22, striking out seven while walking just a pair. Klemm was pulled with a no-hitter intact after the sixth inning due to an early season pitch count.
With the win against Wilmington, Klemm now sits sixth all-time in program history with 16 career victories, as the junior holds a 16-2 career record on the mound and ranks just outside the top-10 in career strikeouts.
Rios earns his first career CCIW Hitter of the Week award after leading the offense with eight hits, seven runs batted in and a .929 slugging percentage. Rios recorded multiple hits and RBI in each game this week while smacking his first career homerun, a three-run shot to right-center field in the Cardinals' 10-6 win over the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
North Central begins its annual Spring Break trip to the Snowbird Baseball Classic in Port Charlotte, Florida on Sunday, Mar. 1, taking on Otterbein University (Ohio) at 3 p.m. (ET), while closing out the trip with a top-25 matchup against 13
th-ranked Kean University (New Jersey) on Friday, Mar. 6.
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