ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's baseball team hopes its third home series of the 2020 season is the one that gets its season untracked, as the Miners complete their 12-game season-opening homestand this weekend with a four-game set against Upper Iowa at the S&T Ballpark.

The Miners have started the year with just one win in eight games against two challenging opponents with a combined record thus far of 12-5, but will face an Upper Iowa squad this weekend that dropped three of four in its opening weekend of action last week.  The teams will play a pair of doubleheaders in the series that will begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

S&T was victimized by the big inning last week in its series against Davenport, as the Panthers had at least one four-run inning each of the four contests.  The Miners have hit .260 over their first eight games of the season, led by Aaron Berkhoff's (Colorado Springs, CO/Cheyenne Mountain) .385 average and Will Hayes' (Terre Haute, IN/South Vigo) .375 mark.

Hayes has also stolen a team-high four bases and is tied with Doug Wood (Liberty, MO/Liberty North) for the team lead in runs batted in with five.  Keegan Baxmeyer (Waterloo, IL/Freeburg) is hitting .346 on the year – the only other regular currently hitting above .300 in the early going – and owns a .500 slugging percentage as he has one of the team's two home runs.

Brenden Garza (O'Fallon, MO/Fort Zumwalt South) has made two starts for S&T on the mound and has a 1-1 record, while Dylan Dunbar (West Plains, MO/West Plains) and Cade Meier (Dakota, IL/Dakota) are tied for the staff lead with nine strikeouts apiece.   Miner pitchers have struck out 59 batters in 61 innings thus far on the year.

ABOUT UPPER IOWA: The Peacocks opened their 2020 campaign last weekend with a win over Truman State, then dropped a second game to the Bulldogs and two contests to Pittsburg State to bring a 1-3 record into play Saturday.

Upper Iowa scored 18 runs in the final two games of the weekend – both losses – and batted .304 as a team in those games.  A.J. Friedrich leads the Peacocks with a .500 batting average and has driven in a team-high five runs, while Collin Meinert is hitting .455 and Conner Klostermann has a .400 mark and both of the Peacock home runs to date.

Pitching-wise, the Peacocks struggled over their first four games as over a span of 31 1/3 innings, the staff allowed 42 earned runs, 30 walks and 49 hits.  Starter Colin Lacey allowed just one hit and struck out seven in a four-inning outing.