ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's baseball team will have an opportunity to officially clinch its spot in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament this weekend, but before that, it will play a non-conference road game Wednesday afternoon against Southwest Baptist in Bolivar, Mo.

The Miners and Bearcats – who will begin facing one another in GLVC play next spring when SBU becomes an official member of the conference – will meet in a 2 p.m. game before S&T returns home for a three-game series against Bellarmine at the S&T Ballpark.  The teams will play a noon doubleheader on Saturday before wrapping up the series with a single game Sunday at noon.

Missouri S&T comes into Wednesday's game sporting a six-game winning streak and are 12 games over the .500 mark for the first time this season after sweeping a weekend series at McKendree.  The Miners are 25-13 overall and are tied for third place with Illinois Springfield in the GLVC with an 18-9 mark.

Matt Gruse (Neenah, WI/Neenah) leads the Miners on the offensive side with a .340 batting average while Kaleb Reid (Smithville, MO/Smithville), who had eight hits in 13 at-bats in the McKendree series, has raised his average to .328 on the year.  The Miners have four other regulars hitting over .300 in Jason Volkmann (Liberty, MO/Liberty) at .316, Tim Lira (Granger, IN/Penn) at .313, Matt Knickerbocker (Bayfield, CO/Bayfield) at .311 and Cameron Burk (Nacogdoches, TX/Cushing) at .305 as their .291 team batting average ranks fourth in the GLVC.

Lira leads the Miners with six home runs and 31 runs batted in, while Burk is second in the GLVC with 17 stolen bases and Reid ranks third with his 15 swipes.

The S&T pitching staff, meanwhile, sports an earned run average of 3.85 that is tied for the best in the conference.  Brenden Garza (O'Fallon, MO/Fort Zumwalt South) has a 2.82 ERA to go with his 4-0 record, while Dalton Erger (Imperial, MO/Seckman) has a 2.90 ERA and has struck out 57 in a GLVC-high 68 1/3 innings of work.  Luke Marcheschi (Bloomington, IL/Central Catholic) is third in the conference in wins with seven and has a 3.56 ERA and Conner Forsythe (Farmington, MO/Farmington) is tied for the conference lead with five saves.

Southwest Baptist brings a record of 16-25 into Wednesday's game and has the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association's leading hitter in Caleb Sneed, who comes into the week with a .427 average.   Hunter Hisky checks into the week with a .359 average and leads the Bearcats with 35 runs batted in, while Jackson Soule is hitting .303 on the year.  SBU's top home run hitter is Carl Schwettmann with six on the year.

As a staff, the Bearcats have a 6.15 earned run average and opposing hitters have batted .293 against them this year.  Drew Wagner, who has a 4-2 record and 4.47 ERA, started for SBU in the first matchup against the Miners on March 12, a game won by S&T 7-1 in Rolla.

Bellarmine enters the week coming off a weekend where it dropped two of three at GLVC leader Quincy and is 24-18 on the year with a 15-12 conference mark.  The Knights are in a scramble at the cutoff point for the GLVC Tournament, as they currently hold the eighth spot in the standings with a one-game advantage over Lewis.

The Knights rank second in the GLVC in hitting with a .324 team batting average, led by Matt Higgins' conference-best .415 average.  Bellarmine also has the GLVC's third-leading hitter in Chris Gambert with a .408 average and fourth-leading batter in Zac Wiley, who is hitting .406 on the year.  Gambert and Wiley are also tied for the conference lead with 12 home runs apiece – the Knights lead the GLVC with 53 homers -- while Wiley has a league-high 57 runs batted in that also ranks seventh in NCAA Division II.

Alex Phillips has a 3.12 earned run average to pace the Knight pitching staff, while Eddie Mathis has a 6-2 record and 3.95 ERA.  Meanwhile, Kyle Beach has a 4-1 record that includes a win in the middle game of the Quincy series over the past weekend and Brandon Pfaadt has recorded three saves.  Bellarmine has a team earned run average of 4.92 entering the week.