SIUE Cougars (32-22) at OVC Championship
May 21-23
MTN Dew Park
Marion, Illinois

PROBABLE SIUE STARTERS
RHP Spencer Stearns
RHP Tim Teixeira
RHP Jase Phillips

TOURNAMENT TIME: SIUE is making its fifth consecutive appearance in the championship and the seventh overall. As the No. 1 seed, SIUE received a bye to Thursday. The Cougars will face the winner of the Southern Indiana/Little Rock game played Wednesday night.

WINNING WAYS: SIUE had a 10-game winning streak snapped last Friday. It was the longest winning streak in SIUE's Division I era. The 32 wins are the most in the Division I era, and the most since 2007 when the Cougars won 37 games.

TITLE TOWN: With a win last Thursday, SIUE clinched its first-ever OVC Regular Season Championship. The last conference title for the Cougars was a Great Lakes Valley Conference title in 2007.

HOW SWEEP IT IS: SIUE swept four weekend series in OVC play (at Morehead St., vs. Tennessee Tech, vs. Lindenwood, at Eastern Illinois).

SERIES STUFF: SIUE against the field in 2026:
No. 8 USI: 2-1
No. 6 Lindenwood: 3-0
No. 4 Little Rock: 2-1
No. 3 SEMO: 1-2
No. 2 Eastern Illinois: 3-0

START ME UP: The Cougars started 8-0 in OVC play, marking the program's best start to any conference season. The previous best was a 6-0 start in 2015.

ALL-OVC: Ryan Niedzwiedz earned the program's first-ever Player of the Year award and Sean Lyons took home honors as Coach of the Year, also a program first. 
Including Niedzwiedz, SIUE had a total of seven players represented on All-OVC teams. Chase Bloomer, Tim Teixeira and Easton Harris joined Niedzwiedz on the first team. Joshua Heyder and Spencer Stearns were each selected to the second team and Coooper Eggert was named to a spot on the All-Freshman team. The seven selections and four first team selections are both program highs for the Cougars. 

HOMER HAPPY: SIUE finished the regular season with an OVC-best 104 home runs which ranked 11th in the NCAA. The Cougars also ranked 11th in the country at 1.93 home runs per game. SIUE broke its school record of 99 home runs, hit in 2022. Individually, Niedzwiedz leads the league and ranks fifth nationally with 27 home runs, which is tied for the second most in an OVC season. Mack Mitchell ranks third in the league with 17 home runs. 

HOMER RECORDS: Niedzwiedz owns the single-season (27) and career (46) records for home runs at SIUE. Mitchell has hit 39 in his career, to rank second. The previous record at SIUE was 35. 

DRIVE ME HOME: With four RBIs in the final week of the regular season, Niedzwiedz now has 67 which is a new record for a Division I season at SIUE. It ranks third most in any season.

HARD NINE: The Cougars hit a single-game school-record nine home runs March 20 at Morehead State. SIUE hit 19 home runs in the the three-game weekend series sweep of the Eagles. 

D1 HIT KING: Chase Bloomer became SIUE's Division I hits leader during the series at Eastern Illinois. He now has 238 hits in his career. That ranks sixth all-time.

EDWARDSVILLE SLUGGERS: SIUE leads the OVC and rank 19th nationally in slugging percentage (.518). Niedzwiedz is second in the OVC and is 11th in the NCAA with a .792 slugging percentage.