ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's baseball team will head to the road this weekend for a four-game series against a nationally-ranked team, as the Miners will take on 14^th-ranked Illinois Springfield in Great Lakes Valley Conference play in Springfield, Ill.

The Miners, 8-8 overall and 4-4 in the GLVC after splitting their first two conference series of the season, will face the Prairie Stars (14-2, 10-2 GLVC) in a single game on Thursday at 2 p.m. to open the series, then meet in a noon doubleheader on Friday and a 1 p.m. single game Saturday to finish the weekend.

As was the case in its first GLVC series of the year, the Miners won the first two games of the weekend over Quincy before dropping the last two contests.  S&T got a big weekend from Will Hayes (Terre Haute, IN/South Vigo) in the series, as he went nine-of-16 at the plate and reached base in 12 of his 19 plate appearances and drove in eight runs in the four games.

Hayes leads the Miners in hitting entering the UIS series with an average of .388 and also paces S&T in runs batted in with 14 and stolen bases with a GLVC-leading 12.  Michael Ward (Hazelwood, MO/Hazelwood West) is batting .381 on the season and has three of the Miners' six home runs, while also holding a .762 slugging percentage mark that is one of the top marks in the conference.

The Miners are hitting .302 as a team, with Doug Wood (Liberty, MO/Liberty North) batting .321 on the season with 11 RBI, Andrew Branson (St. James, MO/St. James) at .317 and Dakota Sill (Lansing, KS/Lansing) at .310.  The Miners have also stolen a league-best 40 bases through 16 games.

On the mound, Cade Meier (Dakota, IL/Dakota) has a 2-0 record and 3.49 earned run average with a team-high 23 strikeouts in 28 1/3 innings, while Rian Markes (Columbia, MO/Father Tolton) is 1-1 with a 5.82 ERA and 19 strikeouts.  The S&T pitching staff has struck out 123 hitters in 135 1/3 innings on the year.

That staff will have the task of trying to slow down the GLVC's top offensive team, as Illinois Springfield leads the conference with a .350 team batting average, .591 slugging mark and .456 on-base percentage.  The Prairie Stars have also scored a league-best 170 runs in 16 games, 65 of which came in their four-game sweep at Truman State last weekend and have scored at least 10 runs in each of their last seven contests.

Zion Pettigrew leads the GLVC in hitting with a .481 batting average and also owns the league's best slugging percentage mark of 1.167, Pettigrew also leads the GLVC with nine home runs, 10 doubles and is second with 23 runs batted in, while Kal Youngquist is batting .404 with 21 runs batted and Chris Mathieu is hitting .403 with 22 RBI.  The Prairie Stars, who have hit a GLVC-best 28 home runs, have six regulars hitting .349 or better entering the weekend.

UIS also has a pitching staff that has posted a 3.44 earned run average and allowed only seven hits in the final three games of the series at Truman.  Colton Hale, who threw a four-hit shutout with 13 strikeouts at the Bulldogs on Saturday, was named as the GLVC's Pitcher of the Week and has a 2.00 ERA on the year, while Chad Saner has a 1.88 ERA to go with his 3-0 record.