BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - The Illinois Wesleyan University baseball team will open its 2024 campaign with three road games. The Green and White will play two games at Shaw Park to open the weekend, the first against Fontbonne University Friday, Feb. 23, with a start time of 2 p.m. before tangling in a neutral site game against University of Wisconsin-Platteville, Saturday, Feb. 24, at 12 p.m. IWU will round out the weekend against Central College in O'Fallon, Ill. at the O'Fallon Family Sports Park on Sunday, Feb. 25 at 12 p.m.
The road trip will mark Titan debuts for 11 freshmen and four transfers. The new-look team returns senior Louis Perona (Chicago, Ill.-Lane Tech) an All-Region selection as a junior, and the lone returner to have started every game from a season ago. Perona manufactured the team's highest batting average last season with a .432 clip. The Chicago, Ill. native led the offense with 169 at-bats that featured 15 doubles.
Junior Nathan Waterman (Downers Grove, Ill.-Downers Grove South) compiled the lowest earned run average of any qualified Titan pitcher with a 3.16 ERA in 25 innings of work.
Entering his 37th season at the helm of the program, head coach Dennis Martel is just 9 wins away from eclipsing the 900-win mark. In his 36 years at IWU, his teams have posted a 31-win season six times, most recently in 2013. Martel has a career record of 891-600-3 through 36 seasons, as well as a 437-240 mark in College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin action.
Coming into the opening weekend, Fontbonne owns a record of 2-2 after besting Hannibal-LaGrange University last Tuesday before dropping to Ogelthorpe University 1-2 in a three game series later in the week. UW-Platteville and Central have yet to start their seasons but will both play teams prior to meeting up with IWU this weekend.
The Titans have met with the Griffins a total of 16 times with their most recent matchup on Feb. 24, 2023 where the Titans fell to the Griffins 5-4 and are holding the Green and White to a three game losing streak.
Saturday's contest against UW-Platteville will mark the first time the two programs will meet. The Titans and the Dutch have only tangled one time previously dating back to 2022 where IWU dominated in a 11-3 victory.
Live results and live video links can be found on the baseball schedule page of iwusports.com.
