ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T will look to get back on the winning track this weekend when it takes on Illinois Springfield in a four-game series that has been adjusted to begin on Friday due to weather concerns.
The Miners, who will seeking to win away from home for the first time this season, will take an 8-4 record into the series opener at 2 p.m. Friday against the 2-3 Prairie Stars. Following Friday's single game, the teams will play the three remaining contests over the course of Saturday and Sunday depending on the weather conditions as rain is in the forecast for a majority of the weekend.
S&T dropped a 5-4 decision Tuesday at Lindenwood, despite outhitting the Lions 9-8 on the afternoon.
Eli Miller (Shelbyville, Ill./Shelbyville), who had two hits on Tuesday, leads the Miners with a .474 average and the Great Lakes Valley Conference with eight stolen bases, while
Tyler Johnson (Union, Mo./Union) is batting .415 and
Nick Ulrich (St. Louis, Mo./Vianney) is at .413 with two home runs and a team-high 14 runs batted in.
The Miners are hitting .335 as a team through the first 12 games of the campaign.
Aaron Bedsworth (New Bloomfield, Mo./New Bloomfield) and
Dan Borek (Greenville, Wis./Hortonville) have two wins apiece to lead the Miner pitching staff, with Bedsworth carrying a 3.44 earned run average in 18 1/3 innings of work. He has also struck out a team-high 24 batters for a staff that has fanned 90 hitters in 94 innings this season.
Illinois Springfield's only games to date were a 12-0 win over Robert Morris-Springfield and a four-game series with Missouri-St. Louis that was played in Georgia over the past weekend, where the Prairie Stars dropped three of four to the Tritons.
Kenny Hansen has seven hits in his first 14 at-bats this season for UIS, while Aaron Kuper is batting .400 in five games. The Prairie Stars' primary offensive production has come from Gabriel Acevedo, with a team-high four runs batted in and a .381 batting average and Adam Warda, who has two of the three home runs hit by UIS this year.
Chance Simpson has not allowed a run and just four hits in nine innings of work, while Matt Farrington has the other win on the hill with a 2.00 earned run average in nine innings. Despite dropping three of the four contests, UIS gave up just 10 runs in the four-game series against UMSL.
