Preview | Saluki Baseball Opens MVC Championship Tuesday Against Belmont

CARBONDALE, Ill. – The Southern Illinois baseball program heads to Evansville, Indiana for the 2024 Missouri Valley Conference Championship. The No. 6 Salukis will open the eight-team double-elimination tournament on Tuesday at 6 p.m. CT against No. 7 Belmont at German American Bank Field.

THE SCHEDULE & BRACKET
Click HERE to visit the Championship Central page which will house the bracket, schedule, and game links for the complete tournament.

HOW TO FOLLOW ALONG
All games throughout the tournament will air on ESPN Plus while Luke Martin will have the radio calls on the Varsity Network. Fans can also follow along via live stats or at @SIU_Baseball.

ROTATION
TBA VS TBA

QUICK HITS

Southern Illinois enters the postseason at 31-25 overall and the No. 6 seed at the MVC Championship.
SIU has won 30 games or more for four straight seasons under Lance Rhodes. The last time SIU had won 30 or more games in four straight seasons came in 2005-08.
Eight Salukis have multi-hit games in 10 or more games this season led by Mathieu Vallee with 21 and Jordan Bach with 20 multi-hit games. Cole Christman has SIU's lone five-hit game of the season.
Six Salukis have 10 or more multi-RBI games. Christman and Hesston Gray have 13 multi-RBI games, with Gray leading the team with four five-RBI games.
SIU's pitching staff has a 5.87 combined ERA, ranking fourth in the MVC in the category. Reliever Easton Dermody leads the team with a 3.75 ERA and a 4-2 record in 19 appearances out of the bullpen.
Right-hander Aidan Foeller ranks among the nation's best in strikeouts with 91 on the year to lead the MVC and rank 49th nationally. Foeller also owns a 12.10 strikeouts per nine innings mark to rank 28th-best in the country.
SIU reached the 20-win mark at home against Bellarmine. Since Lance Rhodes took over the program, SIU has recorded a 94-36 record at Itchy Jones Stadium.

SALUKIS AT THE MVC TOURNAMENT

SIU is looking for its first MVC Tournament Championship since 1990.
Since the MVC Championship moved to a double elimination format in 2019, Southern Illinois holds an 8-8 record in the tournament. The Salukis have held the No. 1, 3, 4, and 8 seeds in four tournaments (a 2019 tournament was not played due to COVID-19), advancing as far as the championship game in 2022 before falling to Missouri State. This season will be the first time SIU has played as the No. 6 seed with the No. 6 seed holding an 8-7 record in the tournament in the last five seasons, most notably Missouri State's 5-1 run in Springfield to win the MVC Championship.
The Salukis have made appearances in four championship games since 2000 with the last coming in 2022 against Missouri State.

THE MATCHUP

Belmont enters the tournament with a 25-30 record and a 12-15 record in the MVC to earn the No. 7 seed.
The Bruins dropped two of three on the road at Illinois State to end the season. After taking the opener, Belmont fell in extras in game two before the Redbirds claimed the series win Saturday.
SIU leads the series 14-6 and swept the Bruins on the road in Nashville earlier this season. The Bruins eliminated SIU from the MVC Tournament in Terre Haute last season, 6-5.

SAVE IT

Right-hander Anthony Pron is second in the MVC and ranks 15th nationally in saves with nine on the year.
The mark ties him for eighth in program history in single-season saves with five other Salukis, most recently Trey McDaniels.
Dewey Robinson (1977) is seventh with 10 saves.
Pron was named to the Stopper of the Year Watchlist, honoring the top relief arms in the nation.

RUN WITH US

Southern Illinois is 71-82 on stolen base attempts this season, ranking second in the MVC. Ten players have multiple stolen bases led by Mathieu Vallee who is 15-for-16. Jake Allgeyer is 11-for-11 on steals while Hesston Gray is 9-of-10.
Only one other time since 2013 has Southern stolen 70 bases (2022-70) in a season.

WALK IT OUT

The Salukis have shown patience at the plate, ranking tops in the MVC and 18th nationally after drawing 302 walks this season.
It is only the second time in program history that the Salukis have recorded over 300 walks with the only other time coming during the 1980 season when SIU drew a program record 338 walks.
SIU has nine players that have earned 10 or more walks led by Jake Allgeyer's 44 free passes.

OTHER NOTES

Lance Rhodes is 157-94 in five years at the helm of the SIU baseball program.
SIU is 17-5 when scoring in the first inning and has outscored opponents 56-38 in the first.
Southern is 17-9 in games in which the team does not commit an error and 11-6 when committing one error. SIU is 3-10 when committing 2 or more miscues in the field.
SIU is a combined 4-18 when scoring five or fewer runs in a game and 9-14 when scoring 6-9 runs.
The Salukis snapped a six-game losing streak to Top-25 teams after taking the series opener over the #25 Indiana State, 3-2. It was the first ranked win for SIU since 2019.

FOLLOW THE SALUKIS
Keep up with all the latest news and information on the Salukis by following the team on X at @SIU_Baseball, on Facebook at Facebook.com/SalukiBaseball, and on Instagram at @SIU_Baseball. Fans can also download the "Salukis" Mobile App on the App Store or Google Play Store.

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