ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T heads to the road for its final non-conference series preceding the beginning of its Great Lakes Valley Conference schedule, as it will face McKendree in a four-game set beginning on Thursday afternoon in Lebanon, Ill.

The Miners and Bearcats will play a doubleheader Thursday beginning at 1 p.m., then will complete the series Sunday with another twinbill at 1 p.m., as the teams are working around a potentially rainy forecast in the Midwest during the front half of the weekend.  Even though both teams are GLVC members, the weekend series is a non-conference series as the teams play in opposite divisions in the league.

Missouri S&T snapped a six-game losing streak on Saturday and eventually took three of the four contests from Upper Iowa at the S&T Ballpark, racking up 29 runs in Monday's doubleheader sweep over the Peacocks to improve to 6-9 on the season. 

S&T got big games Monday from Lucas Swindle (Weldon Spring, MO/Lutheran-St. Charles) and Zach Bracken (Berthoud, CO/Berthoud) in the wins, as Swindle recorded six hits and eight runs batted in during the two games and Bracken – who belted two home runs in the opener – also drove in eight runs over the course of the twinbill.

Swindle leads the Miners with 17 runs batted in on the season and is hitting .451 on the year with a seven-game hitting streak in progress.  The Miners are led at the plate by Cameron Burk (Nacogdoches, TX/Cushing), who has a .512 average out of the leadoff spot in the lineup and owns a .630 on-base percentage, both of which lead the GLVC; Swindle is third in the league in hitting with the .451 mark.

The Miners got a complete game effort from Anthony Garza (Belleviille, IL/Belleville East) in the series finale Monday and he enters the weekend with the Miners' best earned run average among the starters at 3.22.  Dalton Erger (Imperial, MO/Seckman) has two wins and a 3.93 ERA on the season with a team-high 22 strikeouts, while Dan Borek (Greenville, WI/Hortonville) got his first win over the weekend after allowing just three hits over seven innings with six strikeouts. Luke Marcheschi (Bloomington, IL/Central Catholic) has a 3.15 ERA out of the bullpen in nine appearances.

McKendree is opening its home schedule on Wednesday against Drury and took a 3-11 record into that contest.  The Bearcats have hit just .221 as a team heading into the Drury contest and have two players over the .300 mark in Levi Brening – who is hitting ..383 and also leads McKendree with three home runs and 14 runs batted in – and Matt Klosterman with a .377 mark.

Nick Yung leads the McKendree staff with 18 innings pitched and struck out 13 in that span, while Jack Strieker has fanned 12 in 12 1/3 innings of work.