Bowling Green State University Athletics
Baseball's Brian Hangbers Named MAC East Division Player Of The Week
April 14, 2008 | Baseball
April 14, 2008
CLEVELAND, Ohio - For the first time in his three-year career, Bowling Green State University junior first baseman Brian Hangbers has been named the Mid-American Conference East Division Player of the Week, as announced by the league office on Monday (Apr. 14). A native of Hamilton, Ohio, Hangbers hit .529 this past week, recording 10 hits, three homers and 11 RBI as he helped the Falcons to a mid-week win at Xavier and a series win at Ball State over the weekend to improve the Falcons record to 15-13 overall and 6-3 in the MAC.
The left-handed infielder and pitcher went 10-for-19 at the plate for the week and had a slugging percentage of 1.000, while he also recorded 44 putouts in the field.
On the year, Hangbers has a team-best .400 average as he leads BG with six homers and is second on the team with 24 RBI.
On Wednesday in the Falcons' 8-2 win at Xavier, Hangbers finished with a team-high two RBI and was credited for eight putouts in the field. He carried that success over to Friday's series opener at Ball State where he went 4-for-5 and tied a career-high with six RBI, helping BG to an 18-12 victory. Most of those RBI came on home runs as the junior homered twice in the game, helping the Falcons set a new school-record with eight homers in the contest.
He followed up Friday's effort with another four-hit performance on Saturday in another Falcon win that saw the team score 18 runs, as they won 18-16. Mixed in with those hits was his third homer of the weekend as he was credited for three RBI. The win gave the Falcons their second MAC series win of the year, as they are currently just a half game behind Ohio University for the East Division lead.
On the weekend, Hangbers was 9-for-13 (.692) with three homers and nine RBI as he had a 1.385 slugging percentage and an on base percentage of .706. That included four hits with runners in scoring position and eight hits with runners on base as he hit .727 (8-for-11) against the Cardinals' right-handers, despite being a southpaw.
With his Player of the Week honors, Hangbers becomes the first Falcon to earn the honors since sophomore Derek Spencer earned the honor for the week of May 20th last season.
Hangbers and his Falcon teammates will look to continue to swing their hot bats on Tuesday when they play host to Tiffin University. First pitch between the Falcons and Dragons is scheduled for 3 p.m. at Warren E. Steller Field. BG will then return to road on Wednesday when they head up I-75 to do battle with rival-Toledo at UT's Scott Park with another 3 p.m. start time.
