FIRST PITCH
The Arkansas Tech baseball team is back at home this Tuesday afternoon against Southern Arkansas after playing their first conference series on the road at Oklahoma Baptist this past weekend.
The single nine-inning game will be played as a non-conference contest and is slated to begin at 3 p.m. from Baswell Field.
The Wonder Boys and Muleriders have met 184 times historically in a series that dates back to 1914. In terms of the all-time series record, Southern Arkansas holds a 116-68 lead over Tech.
The two teams met five times last season with a three-game conference series at Tech and a mid-week game SAU. The Wonder Boys won the mid-week game, 16-15, but SAU went on to sweep the weekend series. They also ended up playing in the NCAA Central Region Tournament where SAU won 5-0 to eliminate the Wonder Boys.
TECH(NICALLY) SPEAKING
The Wonder Boys enter Tuesday's mid-week game against Southern Arkansas with an overall record of 3-8. They are coming off being swept in their weekend series at Oklahoma Baptist. Despite the sweep, the Wonder Boys lost the three games by just a combined four runs.
Entering play against the Muleriders, the Wonder Boys are hitting .239 as a team (83-for-348) with 56 runs scored, 12 doubles, a triple and 11 home runs.
Logan Schwenke currently leads the team in batting average at .375 (12-for-32). Schwenke also leads the team in RBIs with 12 and home runs with five. Keaton Ranallo is second on the team in home runs at three while Brendyn Bard, Cole Dawson and Markos Cabranes have account for the other homers thus far with one apiece.
In terms of other extra-base hits, Shane Poe leads the team in doubles with five while Sawyer Duddleston has the team's lone triple thus far.
On the mound, the Wonder Boys have a team ERA of 6.72 and have struck out 86 batters in 89.2 innings of work.
John Gray, Emilano Mata, and Jack Rector made starts over the weekend at Oklahoma Baptist and likely won't see action against SAU. Mason Willis is a candidate to possibly start against SAU as he is the only other Wonder Boy pitcher with a start outside of the three weekend arms.
Aside from those four who have made starts, 13 other pitchers have taken the mound for the Wonder Boys in relief roles. Will Horton has the most relief appearances thus far with five. Grant Shahan has logged the most innings in relief with 13.1 to his credit. Shahan also currently leads the team in strikeouts with 19.
Leading the Wonder Boys once more is Dave Dawson. The all-time winningest coach in Tech Baseball history, Dawson enters his 15th year in the dugout for the Wonder Boys. In his previous 14 seasons, Dawson has guided amassed a 413-298 record. He has also had seven seasons with 30 or more wins which includes the 2014 season in which he led the team a program-record 44 wins and hosting rights for that year's Central Region Tournament.
Overall, Dawson is in his 19th year as a head baseball coach at the collegiate level as he spent four years as head coach at Kansas Wesleyan and totaled 118 wins. His combined win total at Tech and Kansas Wesleyan have him with a career record of 531-389.
SCOUTING SOUTHERN ARKANSAS
Southern Arkansas enters this mid-week game on the road at Tech with an 8-2 overall record. The Muleriders are coming off a three-game weekend sweep of Southeastern Oklahoma. All three games in the series were close and SAU won by a combined total of four runs.
Offensively, the Muleriders are hitting .326 as a team (101-for-310) with 100 runs scored, 21 doubles, three triples and 10 home runs.
Brandon Nicoll leads the team in batting average early on at .438 (14-for-32). Nicoll has also provided the most power production thus far with a .813 slugging percentage thanks to three doubles and three homers. Nicoll also is tied for the team-lead in runs scored with 15 and paces the club with 15 RBIs.
On the mound, the Muleriders have a 6.08 team ERA and have struck out 91 batters in 77.0 innings of work.
The Muleriders used a weekend rotation of Jeremy Adorno, Mikel Howell and Tim Ruffino against Southeastern Oklahoma. Outside of those three weekend arms, the Muleriders have had one other pitcher start a game in Cy Murphy. In that start, Murphy pitched 2.1 innings and allowed two runs on one hit against Colorado School of Mines. He walked two batter and struck out one.
In addition to the four that have started games, the Muleriders have used 12 other pitchers in strictly relief roles. Isaiah Haynes and Hayden Oglesby have made the most appearances with five each. Haynes is 1-0 with three saves and has a 3.60 ERA with 12 strikeouts in 5.0 innings of work. Oglesby is1-0 with a 7.20 ERA and seven strikeouts in 5.0 innings of work
The Muleriders are led by Justin Pettigrew, who is in his eighth season as head coach at Southern Arkansas. In his time at SAU, Pettigrew is 253-108. Prior to taking over at Southern Arkansas, Pettigrew spent over a decade there as an assistant coach first joining the staff for the 2006 season.
