Home slate ends this weekend vs HBU
5/10/2018 12:22:00 PM | Baseball
Game 50
May 11 • 6:30 pm • Huntsville • Don Sanders Stadium
Sam Houston State (33-16, 19-5 Southland) vs Houston Baptist (22-26, 14-10 Southland)
BSN Audio • Live Stats • @BearkatsBSB on Twitter
Game 51
May 12 • 3:00 pm • Huntsville • Don Sanders Stadium
Sam Houston State (33-16, 19-5 Southland) vs Houston Baptist (22-26, 14-10 Southland)
BSN Audio • Live Stats • @BearkatsBSB on Twitter
Game 52
May 13 • 1:00 pm • Huntsville • Don Sanders Stadium
Sam Houston State (33-16, 19-5 Southland) vs Houston Baptist (22-26, 14-10 Southland)
BSN Audio • Live Stats • @BearkatsBSB on Twitter
HUNTSVILLE – The Sam Houston State Bearkats will close out the home portion of its 2018 schedule this weekend with a chance to clinch at least a share of the Southland Conference crown on the Don Sanders Stadium turf when it hosts Houston Baptist, beginning Friday night.
With SHSU graduation ceremonies set for Saturday at Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum, fans planning on attending the game on Saturday are encouraged to arrive early and to park in the north lot beyond the scoreboard at Bowers Stadium. Fans should expect delays due to limited parking and contraflow between ceremonies.
A sweep of the Huskies would give Sam Houston no worse than a share of its sixth league title in program history. With Southeastern Louisiana and Central Arkansas battling each other this weekend in Conway as well, a Bearkat sweep along with neither the Lions or Bears sweeping their series would clinch the outright crown for Sam Houston.
Each game can be followed along via live stats and can be heard on the Bearkat Sports Network. Fans can also get updates by following @BearkatsBSB on Twitter.
Sunday's game will also be Senior Day for the Bearkats' five-member senior class of Dakota Mills, Riley Cooper, Blake Chisolm, Ben Haefner and Mark Hammel.
The Bearkats will have their work cut out for them against an HBU team that has given the Bearkats headaches in recent years. Sam Houston swept the Huskies at Don Sanders Stadium in 2016, but HBU picked up wins in six of seven games in 2015 and 2017, including a sweep of the Kats in Houston a year ago.
Sam Houston enters the weekend having dropped three straight games on the heels of a seven-game win streak, most recently falling 5-3 to Rice at The Don on Tuesday night. The Kats had won each of its first seven league series before dropping the final two games of its series vs Southeastern Louisiana last weekend, keeping the Lions alive in the chase for the SLC crown as they enter their final weekend of league play.
Junior catcher Jordan Cannon will bring a team-best, 13-game hit streak into the series and is one of four Kats with at least 30 RBI this season. Andrew Fregia leads the Kats in that category (38 RBI) and in home runs (8), triples (5) and runs scored (39). He needs just one more hit to his credit to reach 200 for his career.
The Kats have gone with the same rotation of Nick Mikolajchak, Seth Ballew and Hayden Wesneski each of the last four weekends with those names picking up victories to their credit six times in those 12 games. That trio makes up a group of six Bearkat arms this season who have logged at least 40 innings, but still sport an ERA under 4.00.
Meanwhile, HBU had won three straight SLC series of its own before dropping two of three each of the last two weekends to Northwestern State and New Orleans. They lead the SLC with 46 home runs as a team, but are 10th with a .260 batting average and just seventh with a .396 slugging percentage. Matt Heck has been the Huskies' best hitter in 2018, league the team in batting average (.364), slugging (.599), RBI (41), home runs (9), triples (4) and hits (68).
Sixth-year senior Matthew McCollough has been a welcome addition back to the Husky rotation this year after missing all of 2017 due to Tommy John surgery and anchors a three-man rotation with Zach Carter and Bradley Batten who have thrown 250.2 of the staff's 426.2 innings this season. The Saturday left-handed starter struck out 11 in a complete-game win against UNO and carries a 2.71 with 85 strikeouts into the weekend.
