INDIANAPOLIS – The Great Midwest Athletic Conference Baseball Players of the Week for the North Division were announced on Tuesday, the eve before the playoffs start for the eight-team bracket.
 
Five of the six teams from the North Division (top three in the standings plus two wild cards) punched their ticket to the Great Midwest Championship at PRASCO Park in Mason, Ohio.
 
North Division regular-season champion Ohio Dominican assumes the position as the No. 1 seed while preseason coaches poll favorite Malone is No. 2. Hillsdale is slotted in at No. 3 while the other two wild card entries are Findlay and Walsh.
 
The conference tournament will be conducted starting on Wednesday at noon ET with Legacy Field and PRASCO Park both being in play.
 
Admission to the tournament is free and the conference is back at PRASCO Park for the fifth consecutive season.
 
North Division Player of the Week
Rees Rua
Lake Erie
Outfield
Junior
Amherst, OH (Amherst Steele HS)
 
Rua and the Storm, despite sitting on the outside looking in for the conference tournament, finished the regular season in style with several historical feats of note. LEC played against Fairmont State, Gannon and Malone to finish out the spring.
 
Rua batted .444 while going 8-for-18 at the plate in five games. He scored eight runs, doubled, tripled and homered, with six RBI.
 
Lake Erie set a single-game conference record by erupting for 31 runs in the first contest of a doubleheader against Fairmont State. Rua accounted for five of those to tie the single-game record by a player since the start of the league in 2013.
 
Rua went 3-for-5 with five runs, three RBI in game one against the Falcons. He also walked twice and stole a base. Game two was more of the same production with three more hits, including two in extra-base style with a double and triple.
 
Rua hit a solo home run in the opener against Malone and went 1-for-3 to close out the weekend against the Pioneers.
 
Rua is the younger brother of Texas Rangers outfielder and former Lake Erie draft pick Ryan Rua. He started in 34 of the 35 games played for the Storm and batted .272 with 10 doubles and 19 RBI.
 
North Division Pitcher of the Week
Mitchell Bault
Ohio Dominican
RHP
Junior
Maineville, OH (Archbishop Moeller HS)
 
Bault was tabbed for weekly pitching honors for the second time this spring following an 11-strikeout gem against Findlay in the final series of the regular season.
 
He fired six innings of five-hit ball, giving up just one run and walking one. The winning decision was earned by Bault, his sixth of the year.
 
Bault faced just five batters over the minimum as the Panthers secured the regular-season title for the North Division with their 32nd win to enter the playoffs. ODU remains ranked 17th nationally and fourth in the NCAA DII Midwest Region rankings.
 
Bault improved to 6-2 this year with a 4.64 ERA. He has 12 games started and 13 total appearances in a team-high 73.2 innings pitched.