Certainly, week five was one that shook up the college baseball landscape from coast to coast.
Two teams, Louisville and Vanderbilt, in the top three of last week’s College Baseball Central top 25 lost series, nine teams in the top 25 as a whole lost series, and four teams were booted from the rankings altogether, including preseason top 15 teams in Louisiana-Lafayette and Oregon, after dropping weekend series.
Week five was also one that brought with it a litany of incredible performances to consider for this week’s Three Stars. Here are the three that made the cut this time around:
3. Josh Bunselmeyer- Saint Louis
Coming into 2016, with offensive leaders like Mike Vigliarolo, Colton Frabasilio, and Jake Henson having graduated and/or moved onto pro ball, the Saint Louis offense was going to need some pieces in their lineup to take steps forward. Through five weeks of the season, senior Josh Bunselmeyer seems to being doing just that, with his crowning achievement to this point coming this past weekend in his team’s series win over Butler.
In the three games against the Bulldogs, he went 6-for-12 with two walks, five runs scored, two doubles, three home runs, and ten RBI. He hit two of those home runs in the Sunday game, helping his Billikens overcome an early 10-2 deficit to win by a 13-12 score.
With that big weekend, Bunselmeyer continues an impressive start to the season. He leads the team in average at .306, on-base percentage at .425, slugging percentage at .639, home runs with five, RBI with 23, walks with 15, and he is tied for the team lead in doubles with seven. He’ll be a big part of a Billikens offense that will look to help extend their streak of Atlantic 10 titles to five in a row.
2. Ryan Scott- Arkansas-Little Rock
Putting up a weekend full of gaudy numbers will get you in consideration for the weekly Three Stars feature, but doing so while also leading your team to a big upset series win will help put you over the top. Ryan Scott of UALR has both of those things going for him coming off of this past weekend.
In his team’s series victory against Louisiana-Lafayette (who had previously been ranked 19th in our top 25), he went 6-for-12 with two walks, four runs scored, two doubles, two home runs, and nine RBI. He had a particularly impactful performance in the middle game of the three-game series, a 10-5 UALR victory, going 4-for-5 with a double, two home runs, three runs scored, and seven RBI. He also threw in a stolen base for good measure.
Scott is now hitting an absurd .493/.568/.907 with 11 walks, six doubles, two triples, seven home runs, and 27 RBI. Combined with Dalton Thomas, who is hitting .408, the Trojans have a quality one-two punch in their starting lineup.
1. Seth Beer- Clemson
Beer officially becomes the first person to appear in Three Stars twice within the course of the season. At the same time, he also becomes the first person to do so in back-to-back weeks.
In his team’s impressive sweep of a Boston College team coming off of a series win over NC State, the freshman went 6-for-10 with two walks, five runs scored, three doubles, two home runs, and three RBI. The cherry on top of his weekend performance was the walk-off homer he hit on Sunday against BC reliever John Nicklas, who had previously been untouchable for the Eagles.
With another big weekend, Beer is hitting .453/.544/.969 on the season, with 12 walks, six doubles, nine home runs, and 25 RBI. This level of college baseball is not supposed to be this easy for freshmen, much less freshmen who should be seniors in high school, and yet here we are. This kid has been incredible thus far.
