With last week’s series cancelled due to field complications, the Cyclones look ahead to this week’s series at the University of South Dakota.

While the season is still in its early stages, the Coyotes feature a couple of potent hitters in Matt Adamson (.407) and Trevor Freudenthal (.333). These two have 10 and 11 hits respectively in their first 27 at bats.

Despite the scary numbers, the Cyclones are a confident bunch, heading into the series with their 2-1 record.

“I’m completely confident in our pitching staff,” assistant coach Jim Smaga said. “Its early in the season so those numbers probably don’t mean a whole lot right now, I’m sure we’ll shut them down.”

Smaga doesn’t hide the fact that a good number of guys on his team will soon be putting up those types of averages.

“We have a pretty good offensive lineup ourselves. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bunch of our guys hitting in the .300s,” Smaga said.

Sophomore pitcher Tim Strub, who will get the start in game one of the series, feels that the numbers aren’t going to be of any great concern to him on the mound.

“I’ve heard of one of those guys being player of the week in the conference once, but they haven’t faced me yet. They might be getting those averages against weaker competition,” Strub said.

Strub will look to throw Adamson and Freudenthal, as well as the rest of the Coyotes lineup, at bay with his fastball-curve ball combination. He also talked about mixing in the change up the second time around through the lineup.

Strub threw for five strikeouts in the Cyclones’ 4-2 opening day victory in his last start.

Senior second basemen and outfielder Drew Samuels will be another Cyclone to keep an eye on as he had a home run in the opening series against UNI.

The Cyclones will also need to keep an eye on the Coyote’s Randall Waterbury and Andrew Hartman, who earned player of the week in the conference and pitcher of the week in the conference respectively.

Waterbury went 6-10 in their series against the University of Nebraska, including two doubles and a home run.

He walked five times, stole two bases and scored four while driving in three.

Hartman took a no-hitter into the fifth inning against the Cornhuskers and struck out six batters in seven innings of work, while only walking three.