ROLLA, Mo. – A busy second half of the week heading into Easter weekend kicks off Wednesday for Missouri S&T's baseball team, as it will host Drury University in a 1 p.m. doubleheader at the S&T Baseball Field in Great Lakes Valley Conference play.

Following Wednesday's twinbill, the Miners head to the road for a four-game series in Liberty, Mo., against William Jewell that will begin Friday.  The Miners and Cardinals will play twice on Friday and two more the following day with noon start times each afternoon.

The Miners, who won two of three from Rockhurst over the past weekend – the fourth game of the series was cancelled on account of weather – bring a 16-19 overall record and 10-11 GLVC mark into Wednesday's twinbill with the GLVC West Division leader.   S&T got strong pitching performances from John Auble (St. Louis, Mo./Lutheran South) and Micah Dohlen (Kent, Wash./Kent Lake) in the two wins over Rockhurst, as they allowed just six hits apiece in their complete game efforts.

Auble and Dohlen lead the S&T pitching staff in wins with three apiece, as Dohlen is 3-2 with a 3.26 earned run average and Auble is 3-3 with a 4.12 ERA and a team-high 35 strikeouts.  The Miner pitching staff leads the GLVC with 10 saves, four coming from Reed Brown (Rogers, Ark./Heritage).

Brown continues to lead S&T in hitting with a .350 batting average, the 16^th-best mark in the GLVC and has a team-high 21 runs batted in.  He is among three Miners hitting over .300 heading into play this week along with first baseman Lance Portwood (Edmond, Okla./Edmond Santa Fe) at .313 and Michael Lockett (O'Fallon, Mo./Timberland) at .310.

Portwood had six hits in 10 at-bats in the series against Rockhurst and drove in the go-ahead run in both of the Miner wins.

Drury had its 18-game winning streak halted Saturday and owns a 24-9 overall record and division-leading 16-4 mark as play begins this week.  The Panthers are the GLVC's top offensive team with a .350 team batting average and have scored a league-best 222 runs on the year.

Centerfielder Nick Thimesch leads the GLVC with a .469 batting average, while Caleb Cole ranks seventh in the batting race at .379 and Luke Tewes is 11^th at .367.  The pitching staff, meanwhile, is second in team ERA at 3.40 on the year and has three pitchers with five wins apiece, including Will Landsheft, the reigning GLVC "Pitcher of the Week" who threw a no-hitter at William Jewell on Friday.

Another of the five-game winners is Kevin Sweeney, who started the first game of the doubleheader between the Panthers and Miners when the teams met in Springfield on April 1.  Drury won both contests by scores of 5-4 and 14-0.

William Jewell, who will play a doubleheader Wednesday at Rockhurst, is 11-22 overall and 9-13 in the GLVC heading into the mid-week twinbill.  The Cardinals have hit just .217 as a team this season, but broke out against Drury on Saturday following the Landsheft no-hitter by rapping out 26 hits in the doubleheader sweep.

The Cardinals trailed 8-5 heading into the seventh inning of the opener, but scored three in that inning to extend the game and won it in the eighth on a home run by Coleman Waheed.

Vance Gorman leads William Jewell at the plate with a .273 average and 13 runs batted in, while Bryan Rezin is hitting .260.  The Cardinals have two pitchers with an ERA of under two in Billy Kirkpatrick (1.83) and Preston Felgate (1.87), while lefthander Drew Mitrisin has a 2.16 mark for a staff with an overall ERA of 3.72.

Live Stats (Wednesday's doubleheader)

Live Stats (William Jewell series)