The University of Illinois Springfield baseball team will host their final home games of the 2024 season this weekend against Southwest Baptist University. The Prairie Stars take on the Bearcats in a four-game series beginning on Friday at 1:00 p.m., followed by a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 12:00 p.m., and will finish with a lone Sunday game scheduled for 12:00 p.m.
UIS (23-18, 14-14)
The Prairie Stars are coming off an important series win against Upper Iowa as they chase a GLVC Tournament spot. The Stars are sitting in ninth place, just outside the playoff picture as we enter the final two weeks of the regular season. Game One of the series against UIU was a comeback win for UIS, 8-7. The Prairie Stars found themselves down by four runs in the third inning, but came back to tie the game at seven. Ivan Dahlberg hit his third home run of the game in the eighth inning to ultimately give UIS the win. Game Two was all UIS from the start, as the Stars roared to a 9-1 win in seven innings. The script flipped in Game Three as Upper Iowa were the ones to score the early runs and hold on for a 9-4 win. In the series finale on Sunday UIS got back to winning ways by a big margin as they won 10-3 behind a big day from TJ Yakimisky.
The Prairie Stars are 15-8 at home this season. As a team, UIS is hitting .327 and have scored 429 runs. UIS's pitching staff currently holds a 7.57 ERA while allowing 265 earned runs. Opponents have a .312 batting average against UIS pitchers. The Prairie Star defense has a GLVC-leading .978 fielding percentage with only 30 errors.
Southwest Baptist (10-32, 7-21)
The Bearcats are coming off a weekend which saw them get swept by Quincy as they are currently on a six-game losing streak. SBU suffered a big loss in Game One as Quincy won 13-1. Southwest Baptist led in Game Two, but Quincy scored four runs in the fifth inning to earn a 4-2 win. In Game Three QU's eight run second inning pushed the Hawks to a 9-4 win. In the series finale SBU jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the second inning. Quincy scored three runs in both the fourth and fifth inning to tie the game at six. Southwest Baptist took the lead back in the seventh, but a four-run bottom of the inning gave the Hawks the lead, which they wouldn't give up to complete the sweep.
The Bearcats are just 1-18 on the road this season, with their lone win coming against William Jewell on March 29. SBU is hitting a conference-low .246 and have scored 230 runs. The Bearcat pitching staff currently has an 11.81 ERA while allowing 406 earned runs. Opponents have a .364 batting average against SBU pitchers. The Bearcat defense has committed 72 errors this season for a .947 fielding percentage.
How to Follow
Every conference game of the 2024 season will be streamed on GLVCSN and will have live stats that you can follow. Both the stream and live stat link can be found in the Baseball section on the UIS Athletics website.