Baseball Travels To Wichita State For Final MVC Series
05/15/2002 | 12:00:00 | Baseball
May 15, 2002
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Carbondale, Ill. - Southern Illinois University (30-20, 15-13 MVC) will face #12 Wichita State (40-12, 21-7 MVC) in an important final regular season Missouri Valley Conference series for both teams this weekend in Wichita, Kansas.
"I'm excited about playing this series against a good team in a beautiful ballpark in front of a lot of people. It's a great atmosphere for college baseball and most of our guys haven't experienced that before and they'll be surprised but hopefully not intimidated and rise to the occasion," said Dan Callahan, Saluki head coach.
Wichita State leads the MVC with a 21-7 record and SIU is in fourth place at 15-13, six games back. The Salukis have an outside shot at third place if they can win three or four games against the Shockers, who need two wins, a win and a Creighton loss or two Creighton losses to clinch the title.
"They're in first in the MVC and ranked nationally because they do all three phases of the game well and when we face them we'll have to do everything well to have a chance to make some noise. If we can hit the ball in addition to pitching and playing defense the way we did the final three games against Indiana state, we'll have a chance," added Callahan.
SIU lost last year's series 3-1 despite the efforts of Scott Hankey (.438), Luke Nelson (.368) and Jeff Stanek (.357). The 2002 squad is led by Ross Kowzan (.364), Justin Maurath (.356) and Jeff Stanek (.339) at the plate and Jake Alley (5-3, 3.53), Ryan Welch (5-2, 3.53) and Nelson (6-4, 5.23) on the mound. In MVC play, SIU is third in pitching (4.98), fourth in fielding (.958), fifth in hitting (.287) and sixth in scoring (5.75 runs per game). Overall, SIU is hitting .299 (4th) with a 4.46 era (3rd) and the best defense (.968).
Wichita State is batting .324 (2nd), has a 3.48 era (1st), fields at a .967 clip (2nd) and scores the most runs (7.79 per game) in MVC play. The Shockers are led by Mark Burgamy (.409), Mark Johnson (.378) and Randy Walter (.366) at the plate. John Tetuan (8-0, 1.99), David Sanders (5-2, 2.77) and Adam Peterson (6-3, 3.57) lead WSU on the mound. The Shockers are hitting .323 with a 2.95 era overall.
Southern Illinois will play a single game on Friday at 7 p.m., a doubleheader on Saturday at 2 p.m. and a single game at 1 p.m. on Sunday at Eck Stadium.
The Friday night game will be broadcast locally on 95.1 FM and available on www.magic951.com for those outside the local listening area. All day games and the remaining three games of the series can be heard on 1020 AM locally or at www.siusalukis.com.
SIU qualified for the MVC Tournament for the fourth time (1996, 1997, 2000, 2002) in Dan Callahan's eight years at SIU after winning three of four games against Indiana State last weekend. The Salukis will stay in Wichita for the 2002 MVC Tournament May 22-25.