ROLLA, Mo. – Fresh off its weekend sweep over Maryville that netted it the Great Lakes Valley Conference West Division championship, Missouri S&T's baseball team will head to the Indianapolis suburbs this weekend to play in the GLVC Baseball Championships at Grand Park in Westfield, Ind.
The Miners, winners of six consecutive games, will open play Thursday against Illinois Springfield at 3 p.m. (Eastern time). The two teams faced off earlier in a series earlier this season in Springfield, Ill., where the Miners won two of the three games that were played; the fourth scheduled contest was cancelled due to rain.
Missouri S&T will bring a 34-15 overall record into Thursday's game and is currently ranked fifth in the NCAA Division II Midwest region, while UIS, who finished 15-13 in the GLVC East and won a tiebreaker over Lewis for the final playoff spot, is 28-21 on the year.
The Miners come into the tournament ranked third in the GLVC in both hitting and pitching, as they boast a .312 team batting average and a team earned run average of 4.02. S&T has the league's second-leading hitter in
Eli Miller (Shelbyville, Ill./Shelbyville), who is batting .412 on the season and is also ranked among the GLVC leaders in hits with 70, stolen bases with 20 and is tied for the league lead in triples with teammate
Tyler Bodenstab (Independence, Mo./Truman) with six; he leads S&T in each of the first three aforementioned categories.
Bodenstab, who went nine-of-16 in the Maryville series, is hitting .364 on the year with 17 stolen bases, while
Collin Zurweller (St. Peters, Mo./Fort Zumwalt East) is hitting .344.
Nick Ulrich (St. Louis, Mo./Vianney) continues to lead the Miners in home runs with five and runs batted in with 44, while
Lance Portwood (Edmond, Okla./Edmond Santa Fe) has driven in 29 runs after surpassing the 100 RBI mark for his career last weekend.
As a team, the Miners rank eighth in NCAA Division II in triples with an S&T single season record of 24 and have turned 47 double plays in the field, the 11
th-most in the nation and a mark that is tied the school's single season record.
S&T also has three of the win leaders in the GLVC on the mound in
Keith Coulson (Chesterfield, Mo./Parkway Central), who leads the conference with nine wins (9-2 record) and three shutouts, while
Aaron Bedsworth (New Bloomfield, Mo./New Bloomfield) and
Dan Borek (Greenville, Wis./Hortonville) each have 8-3 marks. Bedsworth has the team's top earned run average mark of 2.82 and is among the league leaders with 64 strikeouts.
In addition,
Ethan Krenning (St. Louis, Mo./Lutheran South) is now fourth in the GLVC with nine saves on the season.
The Prairie Stars split a four-game set at Saint Joseph's to gain the final playoff spot and enter the weekend hitting .289 as a team and sixth in the league in pitching with a 4.53 ERA. Chance Simpson, who was the winning pitcher in the UIS win over S&T in the March series, is 5-1 on the season with a 3.00 ERA and is backed in the bullpen by Richard England, who ranks second in the league with 11 saves.
UIS also has one of the top sluggers in the conference in outfielder Trey Hannam, who has the league's fourth-best slugging percentage at .631 with 12 home runs and 43 runs batted in. Third baseman Gabriel Acevedo leads the Prairie Stars in hitting with a .365 mark and has also driven in 39 runs with seven homers, while outfielder Austin Muench is batting .336.
The Prairie Stars have hit 44 home runs as a team and have allowed just 21 this season.
Following Thursday's contest, the Miners will play again on Friday in Westfield against either Rockhurst or Indianapolis. The other side of the tournament bracket has matchups Thursday between Quincy and Bellarmine, as well as William Jewell against Southern Indiana, the top seed in the GLVC East.
The championship game will take place on Sunday.
