TOLEDO, Ohio – The Toledo baseball team will see non-conference action this week, taking on Oakland in Michigan on Tuesday before heading to South Bend, Ind. for a weekend series at Notre Dame May 10-12. Tuesday's first pitch is scheduled for 1:00 p.m., followed by start times of 6:30 on Friday, 2:00 on Saturday and 1:00 on Sunday. All three games against Notre Dame will air on ACCNX.
 
The Rockets (23-25, 16-11 MAC) finished off last week with a sweep of Eastern Michigan, their second sweep of the season, having also swept Akron in March. The sweep helped clinch a spot in the 2024 MAC Baseball Championship, held at Crushers Stadium in Avon, Ohio May 22-26.
 
Oakland (25-23, 13-11 Horizon) dropped 2-of-3 to Wright State over the weekend. The Rockets defeated the Golden Grizzlies 3-2 at Scott Park on April 1.
 
Notre Dame (25-21, 9-18 ACC) won on Saturday and Sunday to take the series over Pitt. The Rockets and Fighting Irish will meet for the first time since 2020. 
Toledo is tied with Miami for third place in the MAC standings, though the Redhawks own the tiebreaker. Western Michigan remains in second place, holding the final first-round bye with a 15-9 conference mark.
 
LAST WEEKEND
On Friday, Toledo erased an 8-3 deficit with a six-run eighth inning, as Caden Konczak supplied a go-ahead, three-run double. After EMU tied the game in the ninth to force extras, Owen Jackson hit a game-winning sacrifice fly to walk-off a wild, 10-9 victory in 10 innings.
 
Noah Johnson delivered 6.0 strong innings and the bullpen shut-out the Eagles the final 3.0 on Saturday. Luke Walton's go-ahead sacrifice fly in the seventh inning stood as the difference in a 4-3 Senior Day victory.
 
Toledo led 7-0 after three and scored four more in the seventh en route to an 11-1 rout in Sunday's finale. Charlie Scholvin hit his first career home run and triple and drove home four runs while Caden Konczak had a 4-for-5, 4 RBI performance.
 
TOLEDO'S MAC HITTING LEADERS

• Toledo remains the conference leader in home runs, now with 75 for the season. UT's 1.56 team home run average is tied for 49th in the country.
• Garret Pike is tied for fourth in the league with 16 home runs, which matches the most home runs in a season in program history. Owen Jackson's 14 dingers are the seventh-most in the league.
• Pike is also second in the league in hits (69), tied for third in total bases (126), fourth in runs scored (49), ninth in OPS (1.068) and 10th in slugging percentage (.646).
• Jackson is tied for the league lead in walks with 37 and his five sacrifice flies are tied for fourth in the MAC. Scott Mackiewicz joins Jackson in the top 10 in walks, ranking tied for eighth with 32.
• Luke Walton enters the week with 13 doubles, tied for fifth-most in the league.
• Charlie Scholvin is tied for seventh in the league, drawing 14 hit by pitches.

TOLEDO'S MAC PITCHING LEADERS

• Rocket pitching holds the second-lowest ERA in the league (6.00), is tied for the most strikeouts (426) and saves (16), and has allowed the fewest doubles in the league (68).
• Grant Umberger is fourth in the league with a 3.94 ERA and Noah Johnson is 11th with a 5.37 mark. Umberger holds the league's second-lowest opponent batting average at .228, while hitters are just .284 off Johnson, 16th lowest in the MAC.
• Umberger has allowed the seventh-fewest hits in the league (52), struck out the eighth-most batters (63) and pitched the ninth-most innings (61.2).
• Johnson has allowed just six home runs, tied for sixth-fewest in the MAC.
• Umberger's five wins are tied for fifth-most in the league, while Kyle Pijaszek and Jacob Tabor are tied for 11th with four apiece.

ROCKET NOTES

• Toledo is 10-3 in one-run games this season after winning in both instances last weekend.
• UT's bullpen allowed just one earned run across its last 9.2 innings of work in the EMU series.
• Toledo is 3-3 against the Horizon league this year, with two wins against Youngstown State and one against Oakland, and two losses to Wright State and one against Purdue Fort Wayne.
• The series with Notre Dame will mark Toledo baseball's first games against the ACC since a three-game series May 8-9, 2021 at Virginia Tech.
• Konczak hit .421 (8-for-19) last week with eight RBIs, four runs scored and three extra-base hits. He totaled three multi-hit games and now has 11 on the season.
• Johnson has allowed two earned runs or fewer in each of his last three starts and has 13 strikeouts to just four walks in that span.
• Jackson has drawn 14 walks in his last 10 games, with multiple walks in four of those contests.
• UT leads the league with 458 defensive assists as a team.