ROLLA, Mo. – With a successful homestand now in the books, Missouri S&T's baseball team heads to the road for a challenging nine-game stretch that begins this week against the two teams immediately behind them in the Great Lakes Valley Conference standings.

The Miners bring records of 16-6 overall and 9-2 in the GLVC into a week in which they will face Maryville in a single game at noon on Tuesday, then head to Evansville, Ind., for a three-game weekend series against Southern Indiana – who is right behind S&T in the standings at 8-3 in conference play.

S&T split a doubleheader against Maryville last week before sweeping a three-game series over Lewis to complete the homestand with wins in eight of the nine games.  The Miners pulled out a pair of one-run wins over Lewis in the weekend series, getting a two-out, two-run single from Tim Lira (Granger, IN/Penn) to win Friday's game and an RBI single from Matt Gruse (Neenah, WI/Neenah) in the bottom of the 11^th to win the first game of Saturday's doubleheader.

Gruse leads the Miners in hitting with a .364 average through Saturday's games, while Jason Volkmann (Liberty, MO/Liberty) is hitting .362 and Kaleb Reid (Smithville, MO/Smithville) checks in with a .355 mark.  The Miners are hitting .301 as a team and have six regulars hitting over the .300 mark on the season.

Lira, whose grand slam in the win over Maryville was his team-high fourth of the season, also leads S&T with 21 runs batted in, while Cameron Burk (Nacogdoches, TX/Cushing) leads the Miners with 11 stolen bases and 25 runs scored.

S&T's pitching staff has a team earned run average of 3.67 on the season, with Brendan Garza owning a 1.88 earned run average and Luke Marcheschi (Bloomington, IL/Central Catholic) at 1.94; Marcheschi has a GLVC-high five wins on the mound this year.  Meanwhile, Dalton Erger (Imperial, MO/Seckman) leads the staff with 33 strikeouts in 40 2/3 innings of work.

Maryville followed up its split with the Miners by winning one of three against Illinois Springfield over the weekend to go to 10-13 overall and 7-4 in conference play.  Wyatt Elbe leads the Saints with a .333 batting average, while Cody Klotz has a .315 mark with a team-high five home runs.  Louis Niemerg has 25 runs batted in to lead Maryville in that department.

Klotz also has a 2.16 earned run average and allowed three runs in five innings when he faced the Miners last week.

Southern Indiana swept a three-game series from William Jewell to extend its winning streak to four games, as it is 15-8 overall and 8-3 in the GLVC prior to a Tuesday game at Bellarmine.

The Screaming Eagles are hitting .302 as a team, led by Lucas McNew with a .413 average that ranks fifth in the GLVC.  McNew has also homered five times this season, while Ethan Hunter has knocked in 28 and has homered four times while hitting .341.  Aaron Euler has a .358 average on the year and Bryce Krizan has stolen a team-high nine bases.

Austin Gossman leads the USI pitching staff with a 3-0 record and 3.34 earned run average, striking out 32 in 29 2/3 innings, while Chase Partain has also recorded three wins on the mound with a 4.78 ERA.