INDIANAPOLIS – Cedarville junior Colton Potter and Malone junior Joshua Hurford were named Great Midwest Athletic Conference Baseball Players of the Week on Monday.
 
Potter was named the G-MAC Player of the Week and Hurford’s actions on the mound merited G-MAC Pitcher of the Week honors.  
 
Both Cedarville and Malone had embarked on respective spring break trips with the Yellow Jackets playing a handful of games in Florida while the Pioneers headed west to Arizona.
 
Potter enjoyed a torrid stretch in five games that included three contests against Midwest Region opponents Rockhurst (twice) and Missouri-St. Louis. He sported a healthy .652 average at the dish while going 15-for-23 on the week.
 
Starting all games in the outfield, Potter had a pair of rare four-hit games, accomplishing the feat against Rockhurst and Spring Hill. He had three hits apiece against Rockhurst and Oakland City and didn’t strike out in any of his 24 plate appearances.
 
He drove in six runs and scored six times and recorded two doubles. Potter also stole three bases and was credited with an outfield assist defensively.
 
Hurford is the second Malone right-handed hurler to earn conference pitcher of the week honors on the heels of freshman Eric Mullet.
 
The Pioneers had a really strong showing in Arizona the past week with a 6-1 record the past seven days. Hurford was the starting pitcher in two of those wins vs. Dakota Wesleyan and Oklahoma Panhandle State and he did it shutdown form.
 
Combined, he had a near-perfect 0.64 ERA in 14 innings pitched, going seven frames in each winning decision.
 
Hurford fanned 12 Dakota Wesleyan hitters as part of seven scoreless innings while scattering six hits and walking one. His strikeout total was just the seventh in conference history that 12 was recorded.
 
The single-game record is 18 back in 2015 by former Arizona Diamondbacks’ farmhand Matt Pobereyko (Kentucky Wesleyan). In a 1-0 final, Hurford received the one run of support he needed to get the shutout win.
 
Versus Oklahoma Panhandle State, he had seven more strikeouts and yielded just one run on five hits in a 9-1 Pioneers’ victory. Malone also gave head coach Tom Crank his 400th career victory during the program’s successful Spring Break trip.
 
In three games, Hurford is 2-0 with 0.59 ERA. His K/9 and K/BB ratios are something to monitor this spring with impressive figures of 11.74 and 1.17 so far.