ROLLA, Mo. – After completing the bulk of its non-conference schedule last week, Missouri S&T's baseball team will get its Great Lakes Valley Conference schedule started this weekend when it faces Illinois Springfield in a four-game set beginning Saturday.

The teams will play a twinbill beginning at noon Saturday in Jacksonville, Ill., and are also slated to play two more contests Sunday, also at noon in Jacksonville. The series was originally scheduled to be the first on-campus games in the four-year history of the UIS program, but inclement weather this week in the Springfield area forced the switch of the contests to Jacksonville.

Missouri S&T is 5-8 as it begins GLVC play following a 2-2 week that saw it hand Missouri Southern its first loss of the season in a single, mid-week contest before dropping two of three over the weekend to Wisconsin-Parkside. Eric Van Dyke (Longmont, Colo./Silver Creek) and John Auble (St. Louis, Mo./Lutheran South), who have been the top two starting pitchers in the early stages of the season, have three of the five S&T wins on mound and are expected to get starts during the upcoming series.

Van Dyke, who was the winning pitcher in Sunday's game one win over UW-Parkside with a solid six-inning effort, owns a 4.05 earned run average in 20 innings of work with a team-high 18 strikeouts, while Auble is 2-1 on the year with a 5.32 ERA and has thrown a staff-best 22 innings.

At the plate, first baseman Lance Portwood (Edmond, Okla./Edmond Santa Fe) leads the way with a .341 batting average, while Tyler Bodenstab (Independence, Mo./Truman), Trevor Karbowski (Standish, Mich./Sterling Central) and Clint Wobbe (St. Louis, Mo./St. Louis University HS) are all hitting .286. Jake Brower (Wentzville, Mo./Timberland), who is hitting .282 on the season, leads S&T with eight runs batted in.

Illinois Springfield is 4-3 as it begins conference play and has batted .282 as a team over those seven contests, led by the .520 mark posted by Trevor Johnson. Jared Massengill is hitting .417 on the year, while Adam Unes has a team-high nine runs batted in.

On the mound, the Prairie Stars have picked up two of their four wins from Drew Sabol -- who has won both of his starts this year – while Barry Arnett is 1-1 with a 1.25 earned run average in 14 1/3 innings. Arnett owns both of the wins for UIS in the history of series between the two schools, one that S&T leads 8-2.

Live stats for UIS series (only for game in progress)