ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's baseball team will begin the second half of its Great Lakes Valley Conference slate this weekend as it begins its drive to reach the conference tournament, hosting Rockhurst University in a four-game series at the S&T Baseball Field.

The Miners and Hawks will play doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday beginning at noon each day.  The teams are in the middle of a wild scramble behind GLVC West Division leader Drury, as the other seven teams in the division are separated by just four games heading into the weekend.

Rockhurst currently sits in third place with a 10-8 conference record – the Hawks are 12-18 overall -- while Missouri S&T is tied for sixth with Truman State, but is only two games in back of the Hawks in the divisional race at 8-10.  The Miners are 14-18 overall after posting a 7-4 non-conference win Wednesday at Southwest Baptist.

The Miners bring a .266 team batting average into the series.  Reed Brown (Rogers, Ark./Heritage), who has hits in 14 of his last 15 games, had two hits Wednesday to improve his team-leading batting average to .345 and also leads the squad in runs batted in with 19 after driving in three in the victory.  Brown ranks among the top 20 in hitting in the GLVC through Wednesday's contests.

Michael Lockett (O'Fallon, Mo./Timberland) comes into the Rockhurst series with a .321 batting mark and Trevor Karbowski (Standish, Mich./Sterling Central) is batting .308.

On the mound, the Miners own a 5.31 earned run average, with Kyle Robertson (Granite City, Ill./Granite City) leading the way with a 3.96 mark in 38 2/3 innings of work.  John Auble (St. Louis, Mo./Lutheran South) has a 4.72 ERA and leads the staff with 34 strikeouts; he picked up his first career save at SBU with a perfect ninth inning that included a pair of strikeouts.

S&T's staff leads the GLVC in saves with 10 – including four by Brown and three by Jacob Hinton (Westmoreland, Tenn./Westmoreland) -- and has 173 strikeouts as a unit, the fifth-most of any team in the league.

Rockhurst enters the weekend ranked third in the GLVC in hitting with a .304 team average, but ranks in the bottom one-third of the league in pitching with a 5.49 ERA.  The Hawks have the conference's fifth-ranked hitter in Josh Dennett, who is hitting .412 on the year with a team-high 23 runs batted in.

The top pitchers for the Hawks are lefthander Josh Tols, who is 11^th in the league with a 2.27 ERA and nearly a strikeout per inning pitched and righthander Joe Huber, who has a 3.44 earned run average.

Live stats (only for game in progress)