SIU Baseball Seeks First Midweek Win Wednesday against Murray State
04/30/2001 | 12:00:00 | Baseball
April 24, 2001
Southern Illinois University Carbondale (15-27, 9-15 MVC) will be looking for its first midweek win of the year when they host Murray State University (25-17, 9-6 OVC) on Wednesday, April 25 at Abe Martin Field at 3 p.m.
The Salukis are 0-4 on Wednesday including a 4-3 loss in ten innings to Murray State on the road earlier this year.
Even though Saluki head coach Dan Callahan would like a win, he's more interested in his team playing well on Wednesday and in general after losing three of four to Southwest Missouri State University last weekend.
"I'd just like to play well. It's something we haven't done much of this year. We haven't won a midweek game all year and I'm embarrassed to say that. I don't know what the problem is," added Callahan.
"Our midweek pitching has not been good or even given us a chance to win. It just doesn't seem like we've done any one phase of the game well enough to give us a chance to win a midweek game. Who knows, maybe this is the week we'll get it straightened out."
Callahan thought SIU could have won the first meeting and hopes the chance to get a season split and win a midweek game will get the headed in the right direction as the weekend approaches.
"They were playing well when they beat us earlier this season and we had just started playing well so I expected a win. We couldn't find a way to win and they beat us in a close game. Hopefully the fact that we haven't won a midweek game will be incentive enough to get the guys going," state Callahan.
"It would be nice to win the Murray State game and hopefully that will give us some momentum going into the Evansville series. This is a two part week. Tuesday we started thinking about Murray and after that game we start thinking about Evansville and the MVC race."
The Salukis sit in seventh place (9-15 MVC) in the Missouri Valley Conference three games behind the sixth place (12-12) University of Northern Iowa.
Murray State comes into the game with a .310 batting average led by Ronnie Seets (.374) and Billy Moore (.373). MSU has a 5.39 earned run average.
Scott Hankey (.331) and Roman Schooley (.331) lead SIU and its team .271 average. Scott Lucht 5-2, 2.75) leads the pitching staff which has a 6.50 earned run average.