GLVC Baseball Tournament bracket

ROLLA, Mo. – After earning a berth to the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament on the final day of the season, Missouri S&T's baseball team will get play started in the event Thursday when its takes on top-seeded Quincy in an opening round contest in Westfield, Ind.

The Miners, who finished 25-24 on the season to finish fifth in the GLVC's West Division, comes into the tournament as the eighth seed and will take on a Quincy team who went on a tear late in the season to win the West Division title and land the tournament's top seed.

Game time is at 2:30 p.m. (Eastern time) at Grand Park in Westfield, a facility that will feature two fields with artificial surfaces to play the tournament on.  If S&T defeats Quincy, it will play Friday at 1 p.m. against either Truman State or Southern Indiana, while a loss will force it into a 6 p.m. elimination game against the Bulldogs or Screaming Eagles, the defending national champion.

The Miners split a four-game series at Rockhurst to close its GLVC schedule, winning a pair of two-run decisions on Saturday before dropping both halves of Sunday's twinbill.  S&T scored four runs in the opening inning in Saturday's first game for starter Aaron Bedsworth (New Bloomfield, Mo./New Bloomfield), who proceeded to throw a complete game to improve to 6-3 on the year.

Bedsworth brings a 3.12 earned run average into the tournament, with team highs in innings pitched at 69 1/3 and strikeouts with 47.  Micah Dohlen (Kent, Wash./Kent Lake), who got the win in game two, is 5-5 with a 4.33 ERA in 60 1/3 innings with 43 strikeouts, while Keith Coulson (Chesterfield, Mo./Parkway Central) has pitched 56 2/3 innings and has a 4.45 ERA.

Tyler Johnson (Union, Mo./Union) continues to lead the Miners in hitting with a .358 average in a lineup that ranks fourth in the GLVC in batting average at .304.  Six Miner regulars are hitting over .300 on the season, a group that includes Trevor Karbowski (Standish, Mich./Sterling Central) at .344, Tyler Bodenstab (Independence, Mo./Truman) at .339 and Reed Brown (Rogers, Ark./Heritage) at .317.

Nick Ulrich (St. Louis, Mo./Vianney) continues to lead the Miners in home runs with six and runs batted in with 36, while Lance Portwood (Edmond, Okla./Edmond Santa Fe) has driving in 34.

The Hawks, who bring a 36-14 record into Thursday's contest, have won their last 11 games and won 20 of their last 23 contests, a run that started around the time they met up with the Miners in a four-game series in Rolla in mid-April.

Quincy possesses the top-ranked offensive team in the GLVC with a .310 team batting average, headed by conference batting leader Kory Wisdom with a .450 average. Wisdom, who also has a .535 on-base percentage, is one of two Hawks in the top 10 in the GLVC in hitting along with David Jacob, batting .392 with 47 runs batted in.

Wisdom and Jacob are one-two in the GLVC in hits with 81 and 73, respectively to head a Hawk lineup that, similar to the Miners, have five .300 hitters among their regulars.

On the mound, Quincy is ranked third in the league with a 3.68 earned run average.  Mark Niebruegge is 7-1 with a 2.69 earned run average in just over 60 innings of work, while Graham Spraker is 4-1 with a 2.40 ERA and leads the staff with 41 strikeouts; Spraker has also held opposing hitters to a .219 average.

The Hawks also have two solid bullpen arms in Jake Wehde, who is 7-2 with a 2.72 ERA and nearly a strikeout per inning pitched and Teddy Rule, who is tied for the GLVC lead with 11 saves and owns a 1.50 ERA.  Rule has fanned 22 hitters in 18 innings of work this season.

Missouri S&T won the opening game of the season series against Quincy, scoring twice in the bottom of the ninth for a 5-4 win on April 11, but the Hawks posted a come-from-behind win in extra innings in the second game and then swept the Sunday doubleheader to win three of four in the weekend set.