ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T will look to grab a spot in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Baseball Championships this weekend as it heads to Kirksville, Mo., for a four-game series against Truman State. The Miners and Bulldogs will play noon doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday at Truman Baseball Park.
The top four teams in each division will qualify for the conference tournament and S&T enters the weekend set in Kirksville tied for fourth place in the GLVC West Division with William Jewell, but due to the tiebreakers, will need to win one more game than the Cardinals and hold off Missouri-St. Louis to secure the playoff berth.
While S&T is playing at Truman, William Jewell has a four-game series at Maryville and UMSL, who is one game behind the Miners (S&T holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Tritons), will host Rockhurst in its final conference series. The Jewell-Maryville and UMSL-Rockhurst series will also begin on Friday.
As for the Miners, they enter this weekend at 21-24 overall and 11-13 in the GLVC after winning three of four over the past weekend over UMSL and then dropping a non-conference game Tuesday night at Lindenwood.
S&T is one of six teams in the GLVC with a team batting average of .300 or better as it is at .301 on the year, with
Matt Gruse (Neenah, WI/Neenah) leading the way with a .355 mark. Gruse is also tied for the team lead in home runs with
Conner Forsythe (Farmington, MO/Farmington) – who is hitting .354 -- with three on the year and is second to
Lucas Swindle (Weldon Spring, MO/Lutheran-St. Charles) in runs batted in with 28. Swindle has knocked in 30 runs while hitting .317 on the season.
Drew Aldana (El Paso, TX/JM Hanks) comes into the Truman series with a .353 average, while
Tim Lira (Granger, IN/Penn) is batting .352 and
Cameron Burk (Nacogdoches, TX/Cushing) owns a .349 average. Burk also ranks fifth in the GLVC in on-base percentage with a .481 mark this season and is tied for fourth in the conference with 20 stolen bases.
On the mound,
Dan Borek (Greenville, WI/Hortonville) has a 5-5 record and a team-best 3.46 earned run average in 65 innings of work, while
Dalton Erger (Imperial, MO/Seckman) holds a 4.30 ERA and leads the pitching staff with 44 strikeouts in 44 innings. Forsythe picked up his fourth save out of the bullpen during the UMSL series and has a 2.61 ERA.
Truman enters its final weekend of play with records of 12-32 overall and 6-18 in the GLVC after dropping three of four at Rockhurst last weekend. The Bulldogs are hitting .250 as a team and are led at the plate by Charlie Kreh with a .383 average that ranks fifth in the conference.
Kreh also leads the Bulldogs with 41 runs batted in and has five home runs, second to Evan Kayser's eight.
On the mount, Kent Frantz is 5-5 with a 4.78 earned run average and a team-high 46 strikeouts, while Rian Markes has a 6.05 ERA to go with his 2-5 record. Peter Young has four saves out of the Truman bullpen and has a 2.16 ERA.
