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As the second week of the college baseball season comes to a close, some things change and others stay the same. Many players who were off to hot starts after week one saw their stats come back to earth while a few kept up their blistering paces.  Luckily for Tulane (#50 according to Perfect Game), Brennan Middleton (BT ’11-'12) was one of those players.  The Green Wave went won all four of their games this week (a three-game series against Indiana and a one-off against Southeastern Louisiana) by a combined score of 30-13 as Middleton continued to hit at an incredible clip. This week was just more of the same for Middleton (9/18, 6R, 4RBI, 2B, 2SB) who is hitting .517 this season. “I think we faced three or four soft-tossing lefties, and I don’t know if it’s the soft tossing side of it — I don’t know if that matters,” said Middleton. “We have hit lefties really well this year to start off the year, and hopefully we can keep that going.”

Although not up to the standard of their first week of the season, Florida Atlantic (#35 according to Perfect Game) had a pretty good stretch thanks to some help from Big Train players. The Owls went 3-2 during a week in which they begun by taking three out of four from Manhattan. However, the week’s end was not as great as they hoped as they fell at Miami (#12 according to Perfect Game) by a score of 10-5. Earlier in the week, Ryan Garton (BT ’11) held off the Jaspers with a great performance (W, 7IP, 5H, 2BB, 8K) to lower his ERA for the season to 0.69 after his two winning starts. Over the course of five games this week, Alex Hudak (BT ’11) and Mitch Morales (BT ’12) hit well (7/19, 4BB, 5R, 4RBI, 2HR, SB and 5/14, 4R, RBI, 2B respectively) to propel the Owls through a packed schedule. Florida Atlantic is gaining some publicity around the country and should be even better once their closer, Hugh Adams (BT ’06-’11), returns from his shoulder injury.

Other Big Train players of note this week were:  Avondre Bollar (BT ’12 / San Diego State) played his way into Tony Gwynn’s starting lineup as he went 5 for 12 with a run, four RBI, a double, and a stolen base this week… Adam Barry (BT ’11 / Cal State Northridge) went 4 for 8 with a double and four RBI during a double-header sweep of Northwestern.