ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's baseball team will play at the S&T Ballpark for the first time in over a year this weekend as the Miners play host to Quincy in a four-game Great Lakes Valley Conference series beginning on Friday.

The Miners and Hawks will play a single game Friday beginning at 2 p.m., then meet up in a noon doubleheader on Saturday before completing the series with another single game Sunday at noon.

S&T returns to the field for the first time since March 14, when it wrapped up its first conference series against Indianapolis that ended with a split of the four games.  Those games were scheduled to be played in Rolla, but weather matters forced those games to be moved to Indiana and thus making this weekend's series the first games in Rolla since last March.

The Miners bring a 6-6 overall record into Friday's game and have several regulars hitting over the .300 mark on the year, led by Michael Ward's (Hazelwood, MO/Hazelwood West) .357 average.  Ward, who has also hit two of S&T's four home runs, also owns a .679 slugging percentage and .513 on-base mark to lead the team in those departments.

Will Hayes (Terre Haute, IN/South Vigo) is hitting .333 on the year, while Andrew Branson (St. James, MO/St. James) has a .323 mark and Dakota Sill (Lansing, KS/Lansing) is at .313.  The fifth Miner over the .300 mark is Doug Wood (Liberty, MO/Liberty North), who checks into the week with a .310 average.  Garrett Weiner (Alton, IL/Marquette) leads the Miners with nine runs batted in, while Brady Voss (Lake St. Louis, MO/Liberty) has a team-high seven stolen bases as the Miners have swiped 29 bags in their first 12 games.

Starting pitcher Cade Meier (Dakota, IL/Dakota) has a 3.38 earned run average and has struck out 21 hitters in 21 1/3 innings, while Nate Wodka (Allen, TX/Allen) has a 4.91 mark in three starts with nearly a strikeout per inning pitched.  Bryce Charipar (Cedar Rapids, IA/Xavier) has a 2.35 earned run average out of the bullpen and has held opponents to a .250 batting average.

As a staff, S&T pitchers have fanned 107 hitters in 103 1/3 innings of work.

Quincy is 8-4 on the season and 5-3 in the GLVC after taking three of four from Southern Indiana last weekend.  The Hawks currently rank third in the conference in runs scored with 87, but put 51 of those runs on the board in its non-conference series against Davenport to begin the season.

Dayson Croes leads the Hawks with a .420 batting average that ranks ninth in the GLVC, while Jacob Kalusniak is hitting .371 on the season.  Michael Nielsen has been the most productive player for the Hawks with team highs of four home runs and 19 runs batted in to go with a .349 average.  On the hill, Riley Martin has a 2.05 earned run average and has won all three of his starts thus far.  Quincy's pitching staff has a cumulative earned run average of 6.17, but has held its opponents to a .277 average.