ROLLA, Mo. – After dropping three of four in its conference-opening series to Maryville last week, Missouri S&T's baseball team will look to get back on the winning track this weekend as it hits the road for the first time in league play.
The Miners, 9-12 overall and 1-3 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, will head to Kansas City, Mo., for a four-game series against Rockhurst on Friday and Saturday at Loyola Park. Both twinbills are slated to begin at noon.
S&T won three of four from the Hawks a year ago in Kansas City and are looking to bounce back after a series where its only win came in an extra inning contest on Sunday. The Miners enter the weekend hitting .293 as a team that ranks third in the GLVC and have a handful of regulars over the .300 mark on the year, led by
Cameron Burk (Nacogdoches, TX/Cushing)'s .431 average.
Burk ranks third in the GLVC in hitting on the year and also owns the conference's fourth-best on-base percentage mark of .553, as he has reached base 42 times in 76 plate appearances.
Drew Aldana (El Paso, TX/JM Hanks) comes into the weekend with a .429 batting mark, while
Lucas Swindle (Weldon Spring, MO/Lutheran-St. Charles) is hitting .375 and leads the Miners with 18 runs batted in.
Connor Forsythe is also hitting .375 for the season and
Tim Lira (Granger, IN/Penn) has a .372 average.
On the mound,
Dalton Erger (Imperial, MO/Seckman) leads the starting rotation with a 3.57 earned run average and has two wins on the season, while sharing the team lead in strikeouts with 24 along with reliever
Luke Marcheschi (Bloomington, IL/Central Catholic).
Trent Green (Perryville, MO/Perryville) owns a 4.43 ERA, while
Anthony Garza (Belleviille, IL/Belleville East) is at 4.97 and
Dan Borek (Greenville, WI/Hortonville) at 4.99 after the past weekend of play. Borek has thrown a team-high 30 2/3 innings.
Rockhurst is also 1-3 in the GLVC – dropping three of four to defending GLVC champion Quincy over the weekend – and is 6-14 overall on the year. The Hawks are hitting .284 as a team following the Quincy series and has the GLVC's second-leading hitter in Alex Van Pelt, who enters the weekend with a .444 average. Van Pelt has been the biggest offensive producer for Rockhurst with 19 runs batted in and has one of the team's three home runs this season.
The Hawks have three others over the .300 mark at the plate in Tommy Kraus with a .355 average, Corbin Hare with a .341 mark and Garrett McNally at .333. Hare has knocked in 12 runs, while Henry Weiler has driven in 16.
Rockhurst's pitching staff comes into the series ranked next-to-last in the GLVC with a 7.52 earned run average. Its staff has been paced by Jack Eisenbarger, who has a 2-2 record and 3.28 ERA with a team-high 33 strikeouts. Weiler owns a 5.40 ERA while Jacob Thigpen, who leads the staff with 25 innings pitched – all as a starter – has a 7.20 ERA.
Following the weekend series at Rockhurst, the Miners will host Fontbonne Tuesday in a single game starting at 2 p.m., to open a six-game homestand for S&T. The Griffins, who host Eureka College in a three-game series over the weekend and Blackburn in a doubleheader on Monday, are 8-9 on the year and are led at the plate by Jackson Penrod with a .426 average.
