Sam Houston vs Oklahoma State (Feb 16-18)
Don Sanders Stadium (Huntsville)
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Game 1 | 6:30 PM | ESPN+ | ESPN+ | Purchase Tickets
Projected Starters
SHSU: RHP Coltin Atkinson (2023 stats: 9-5, 4.80 ERA, 84.1 IP, 70 K, 29 BB)
OSU: LHP Sam Garcia** (2023 stats: 1-8, 7.57 ERA, 44.0 IP, 49 K, 35 BB)
**stats from 2023 season at High Point
Game 2 | 3:00 PM | BSN Audio | Purchase Tickets
Projected Starters
SHSU: LHP Marshall Wales (2023 stats: 2-6, 5.43 ERA, 53.0 IP, 44 K, 18 BB)
OSU: RHP Brian Holiday** (2023 stats: 10-0, 3.07 ERA, 88.0 IP, 141 K, 32 BB)
**stats from 2023 season at Central Florida JC
Game 3 | 1:00 PM | ESPN+ | Purchase Tickets
Projected Starters
SHSU: RHP Miles Hellums (2023 stats: 0-1, 6.52 ERA, 29.0 IP, 27 K, 29 BB)
OSU: TBA
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HUNTSVILLE – The Sam Houston Bearkat baseball team will kick off its 2024 campaign by hosting one of the top names in college baseball, Oklahoma State, for a three-game series beginning Friday night at Don Sanders Stadium.
Friday's season opener and Sunday's series finale will each be streamed on ESPN+, while Saturday's middle game will be available via audio on the Bearkat Sports Network. Fans can listen along on the BSN by going to GoBearkats.com or by accessing it via the Bearkat Sports app. Jason Barfield will be on the call for all three games.
Each team is coming off a 2023 season that ended in an NCAA Regional with the Kats winning the WAC Tournament title and advancing to the Baton Rouge Regional, while the Cowboys played host to the Stillwater Regional which was won by Oral Roberts who ultimately advanced to the Men's College World Series.
The series is the first of three straight home sets for Sam Houston in 2024 as they will also host Dartmouth and St. John's in each of the following weekends.
Season and single-game tickets are available for all Bearkat Baseball games and can be purchased at GoBearkats.com/tickets or by calling the Bearkat Ticket Office at 936-294-1729.
SERIES NOTES
- This weekend will mark the first time Oklahoma State has made a trek to Huntsville and only the second time a Big 12 team has visited Don Sanders Stadium for a weekend series. The last came in 2016 when the Bearkats swept the Oklahoma Sooners.
- Sam Houston is 2-2 all-time vs Oklahoma State with the teams last meeting in 2022 in the first midweek game of the year at Globe Life Field in Arlington. That night the Bearkats snapped a 1-1 deadlock with the No. 4 Cowboys with five runs in the top of the 10th inning, holding on for a 6-3 victory.
- This weekend will mark only the second time the Kats have ever hosted a team for a weekend series who hosted an NCAA Regional the previous year. The last time it happened was early in the 2017 season when SHSU welcomed Louisiana who had hosted the 2016 Lafayette Regional, which the Kats took part in.
BREAKING DOWN THE PITCHING MATCHUPS
GAME1: The Bearkats will throw a trio of seniors at the Cowboys on Opening Weekend, staring with right-hander Coltin Atkinson. The Porter native was the primary Friday arm for the Kats in 2023, making 17 starts and punching out 70 hitters in 84.1 innings while racking up a team-best nine wins. He will be opposed by lefty Sam Garcia who is in his first year with the Cowboys after transferring in the offseason from High Point where he tallied 112 strikeouts in 41 career appearances in three years.
GAME 2: The Kats will go with lefty Marshall Wales, a senior who pitched in a variety of roles in 2023 before settling in as a starter by season's end where he finished strong with a season-high seven strikeouts and only one walk in 5.0 innings vs Oregon State in the Baton Rouge Regional; however, he will be opposed by one of the top JuCo coups of the recruiting season in OSU's Brian Holiday. He was named the MOP of the JuCo World Series in 2023, leading Central Florida JC to the national title. He struck out 23 hitters in just 9.1 innings in the tournament and finished the season with an unblemished 10-0 mark last year and had 225 punchouts in 140.2 innings in his two-year JC career.
GAME 3: OSU has yet to declare a starter for the finale, but the Kats have already declared righty Miles Hellums. A physical righty whose fastball can live in the low-mid 90s, Hellums' improved consistency in the fall and spring earned his Sunday spot to kick off the year after a 2023 season which saw him punch out 27 hitters in 29.0 innings over 16 total appearances.
QUICK HITTERS
- Excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 season, the Bearkats enter 2024 having posted 12 consecutive seasons with a winning record, not putting up a losing mark since going 19-36 in 2010. That streak is the longest among teams in Conference USA, and is second only Texas A&M (16) among the 17 schools within the state of Texas playing Division I baseball.
- Sam Houston has won 100 games since the start of the 2021 season. Of teams in CUSA, only Dallas Baptist (122), Louisiana Tech (113) and Liberty (105) have won more during that span.
- Sam Houston had one of the top offenses in the nation in 2023, setting a school record with 540 runs scored and an average of nearly 8.5 runs per game. They ranked 10th in the nation at season's end in total runs with four of the teams ahead of them advancing all the way to Omaha.
- The Kats welcome back three key starters from that offensive attack in senior Easton Loyd, junior Walker Janek and sophomore Jake Tatom. Janek enters the season as the headliner of the group, tabbed by D1Baseball.com as the top prospect in Conference USA for the 2024 MLB Draft after hitting 13 homers and leading the team with 65 RBI in 2023.
- Despite having to replace the bulk of its lineup from 2023, the Kats have the luxury of returning bulk of its pitching staff. In total, the Kats return 365.2 of its 554.0 innings pitched (66 percent) from a year ago, including 166.2 among its three Opening Weekend projected starters.
