SIUE Cougars (27-21, 15-6 OVC) at Eastern Illinois Panthers (28-15, 15-6 OVC)
May 8-10
Frost Field at Coaches Stadium
Charleston, Illinois

PROBABLE STARTERS: 
SIUE RHP Spencer Stearns vs. EIU RHP Ty Conklin
SIUE RHP Tim Teixeira vs. EIU RHP Bryce Riggs
SIUE RHP Jase Phillips vs. EIU TBA

SCHEDULE CHANGE: Friday's series opener has been pushed up to a noon start to avoid incoming weather.

TOP SPOT: SIUE and Eastern Illinois enter the weekend with identical 15-6 record in OVC play. The Cougars have held at least a share of first place in the OVC for all but a single day during the conference season. 

WINNING WAYS: SIUE's 27 wins matches its highest win total under Head Coach Sean Lyons and is the second most wins in a Division I season. The 2011 Cougars finished the year 28-24.

HOW SWEEP IT IS: SIUE swept the three-game series from Lindenwood last weekend. It was the third sweep in OVC play (at Morehead St., vs. Tennessee Tech).

SERIES STUFF: SIUE leads the all-time series 49-46 including a 20-19 advantage in OVC play. The Panthers have a 23-11 lead in the series in Charleston. Last year EIU won three fo four meetings, including the OVC tournament.

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

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK: Terrick Thompson-Allen became the third SIUE player to garner OVC Player of the Week honors March 23. He was then tabbed as the National Co-Hitter of the Week by the NCBWA Marcg 24. Josh Heyder won his first career OVC Player of the Week award March 16. Ryan Niedzwiedz earned the award March 2. He also was named to Baseball America's Team of the Week March 3.

HOMER HAPPY: SIUE homered five more times last week and continue to lead the OVC and rank 21st in the NCAA with 80 home runs so far this season. The Cougars rank 20th in the country at 1.67 home runs per game. The 80 homers rank second in a Division I season for SIUE. The school record is 99 home runs hit in 2022. Individually, Niedzwiedz leads the league and ranks seventh nationally with 21 home runs. Mack Mitchell ranks sixth in the league with 12 home runs. 

HOMER RECORDS: Niedzwiedz homered twice last week and has the school record 40 for his career at SIUE. Mitchell has hit 34 in his career, to rank fourth. Niedzwiedz is two homers away from tying SIUE's single-season record of 23.

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 has 227 career hits and is third on SIUE's Divsion I career list. The record is 231 hits by Keaton Wright (2014-17). Bloomer is ninth on SIUE's all-time hits list.