CARLINVILLE - Josh Ziegler, a sophomore outfielder from Staunton, had a solid season for the Blackburn College baseball team this year.

Ziegler appeared in six games in a reserve role for Blackburn this spring. He went 1-for-2 with a run scored in a victory at Lincoln Christian College in the first game of a doubleheader sweep April 17 and scored a run in Blackburn’s game at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama as part of the Beavers’ spring break trip March 10.

In 2007, Blackburn reached the 20-win plateau for the sixth straight season.

The Beavers have finished no lower than second in the SLIAC in the last six years and are 97-29 in the conference in that span, the best of any league school.

The son of Larry and Karen Ziegler, Josh is a 2005 graduate of Staunton High School, where he was a three-year letterwinner in baseball for the Bulldogs.

He also earned three academic letters at SHS and is known for his work ethic and team-oriented attitude at Blackburn.

Ziegler’s head coach is Mike Neal, the winningest coach in the history of Blackburn athletics in any sport, who led the Beavers to SLIAC titles in both 2002 and 2004.

This season, Neal won his 200th game in a Blackburn uniform.

A coach who is highly regarded by his peers, Neal has a long resume of success on the collegiate and amateur levels as well as internationally, as he led a team of U.S. collegiate all-stars on tours of the Czech Republic in both 2002 and 2003.

In 2005, he coached a similar group of all-stars on a weeklong exhibition tour of Barcelona, Spain.

Founded in 1837, Blackburn College is a four-year, Presbyterian-related, co- educational liberal arts college located 40 miles south of Springfield. The College is one of six "work program colleges" in the nation where students are required to work in jobs instrumental to the College’s daily operations. The work program receives widespread recognition in American higher education and helps to keep Blackburn’s tuition the lowest of all private colleges in Illinois and among the lowest in the United States.

For more information on Blackburn College, call 1-800-233-3550, fax (217) 854- 3713, email to admit@mail.blackburn.edu, or write: Blackburn College, Office of Admissions, 700 College Avenue, Carlinville, IL 62626. For a look at the College and the baseball team, please check out our web site at http://www.blackburn.edu.