ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T seeks to continue its climb up the standings in the Great Lakes Valley Conference's Green Division as the Miners will head to Kansas City for a four-game series against Rockhurst beginning on Friday evening.

The Miners, 11-13 overall and 7-9 in the GLVC, will open the series with the Hawks (12-12, 9-11 GLVC) with a 6 p.m. game on Friday evening before facing off in a doubleheader on Saturday and a single contest on Sunday.  Play on Saturday and Sunday will get underway at noon each day.

S&T captured its first conference series of the season by taking three of four from Drury at the S&T Ballpark, scoring 44 runs in the four-game set.  The Miners opened the series by outlasting the Panthers in a high-scoring affair that ended at 21-15, then split the Sunday doubleheader before winning the final game of the series Monday 12-2.

Michael Ward (Hazelwood, MO/Hazelwood West) leads the Miners in several offensive categories heading into the weekend, including hitting with a .435 mark that ranks fifth in the GLVC and a league-leading on-base percentage mark of .591.  Ward, who has hit a team-leading seven home runs, has the second-best slugging percentage in the conference at .935.

Will Hayes (Terre Haute, IN/South Vigo) is hitting .388 on the year and his 14 stolen bases rank third in the league, while Brady Voss (Lake St. Louis, MO/Liberty) is tied for fourth in that category with 12 steals.  Andrew Branson (St. James, MO/St. James) is hitting .358 on the year and Garrett Weiner (Alton, IL/Marquette) has a .349 mark with a team-high 21 runs batted in.

On the mound, Cade Meier (Dakota, IL/Dakota) is 2-1 with a 6.00 earned run average, while Rian Markes (Columbia, MO/Father Tolton) has a 2-2 record after picking up a win in Sunday's opener.  Meier has struck out 30 hitters in 33 innings of work, while Markes has fanned 27 in 30 innings.

ABOUT ROCKHURST: The Hawks dropped three of four to division leader Illinois Springfield over the weekend, but snapped the Prairie Stars' 11-game winning streak on Friday behind Jack Eisenbarger's complete game performance with 13 strikeouts along the way. 

Eisenbarger is 5-1 on the year with a 3.21 earned run average and has struck out 61 hitters in 42 innings; he has averaged over eight strikeouts per outing this season.  Thomas Jones has a 2.65 ERA and Luke Lancaster has a 4.56 mark out of the bullpen with two saves.

Nathan Mark and Tyler Stamer each have a .333 batting average to lead Rockhurst, who is hitting .277 as a team.  Stamer leads the team in the production department with six home runs and 19 runs batted in, while Mark has driven in 16 runs and Garrett McNally has knocked in 15.