March 11, 2016
- Missouri State is off to a 9-2 start for the first time since 1995; the Bears hot start includes a perfect 4-0 mark on the road this season and MSU is 25-6 in away games since the start of the 2015 season
- The Bears remained at a peak position of No. 12 in this week's Collegiate Baseball Division I poll, while also rising five spots to No. 21 in the NCBWA poll and four slots to No. 21 in the USA Today Coaches Top 25
- The Bears and Tigers have split their previous six meetings in a series that dates back to 1990; the two squads have not squared off since 2001, when MSU took two of three games from Memphis
- MSU has homered in each of its 11 games to date and its team total of 21 long balls is second only to Mercer's 22 in the Division I ranks; the Bears also rank among the country's top slugging squads, ranking fourth in the nation with a .551 team slugging percentage
- Spencer Johnson has homered in five of MSU's last seven games and enters the weekend with the fifth-best home run per game average (0.55) in the country
- Johnson also brings a streak of 26 consecutive games reaching base safely via a hit, walk or hit by pitch into this weekend's series; over the course of his streak, which includes the final 15 games of the 2015 season, Johnson has hit .341 (30-for-88) and slugged .716 with seven homers and 24 RBIs
- Bryan Young saved his 17th game as a Bear Feb. 20 at UCA and needs to record just one more to match Shaun Marcum's school record of 18; Young ranks 15th on the NCAA's Division I career saves list for active pitchers and will move into a tie for 11th with his next save
- Blake Graham also rides a recent hot stretch into the weekend, having hit .414 (12-for-29) with two homers and 10 RBIs during a career-best nine-game hit streak
- Jake Burger enters this weekend's series just two hits shy of the 100 mark for his MSU career; the sophomore third baseman ranks 12th among all active Division I hitters with a career batting mark of .355
The Missouri State Bears embark on their lone weekend road trip in the month of March when they travel to Memphis to take on the Memphis Tigers in a three-game series at FedExPark. In a series that has already seen a pair of schedule changes due to weather, the Bears and Tigers are now slated to play a noon doubleheader Saturday (March 12), before concluding the series with a single game at 1 p.m. Sunday (March 13).
The Bears (9-2) are coming off a successful opening home stand that included a midweek win over Oral Roberts and a three-game sweep of SIU Edwardsville last week. MSU dropped a 10-inning duel with Oklahoma State on Tuesday in a battle of nationally-ranked squads at Hammons Field.
Memphis (5-7) enters the weekend having dropped five of its last six games after starting the season 4-2. The Tigers welcome back 19 letterwinners from a club that went 37-21 last year and finished fifth in the American Athletic Conference.
The Bears and Tigers have split their previous six meetings in a series that dates back to 1990. MSU took two of three games from Memphis in their match-up in March 2001. Ryan Howard led the way with a homer and four RBIs, while fellow future big leaguer John Rheinecker tossed a complete-game, 12-strikeout effort in the opening-game win. Greg Mathis belted a ninth-inning grand slam and drove in seven runs in MSU's 10-8, game two victory. MSU also claimed a win in 1992 after the Tigers captured the first two meetings in 1990 and 1991 - all on their home turf.
MSU will be looking for a better result than it saw in its first contest of the season vs. an American Athletic Conference foe. The Bears suffered a 12-4 setback to UConn at the Riverview Inn Governors Challenge in Clarksville, Tenn., on Feb. 26 for their first defeat of 2016. MSU is 3-6 all-time against the current membership of the league.
Missouri State has continued to binge on the long ball in the early stages of the season, homering 10 times over the course of its recent five-game home stand to hike its 2016 season total to a Missouri Valley Conference-best 21 dingers, which is the second-best total in all of Division I baseball behind Mercer's 22 round-trippers. Led by the duo of Spencer Johnson and Jake Burger, who rank No.'s 1 and 2 in the Valley in home runs, the Bears have hit at least one home run in all 11 contests and have posted multi-homer games in sevem of those outings.
The early power surge has put the Bears ahead of the early-season home run rate established by the 1999 MSU squad that obliterated the school record with 144 long balls in a 57-game schedule. Through the first 11 games of that season, the Bears hit 19 home runs, before clubbing No. 21 in game 13 on March 20.
MSU has proven to be hard to stop on thdde road over the past two seasons. The Bears are off to a 4-0 road start this year after finishing with a program-record 21 wins in 27 road contests in 2015. Last spring, the Bears' 0.857 win percentage on the road represented their best since 1978, when they went 12-2 (0.857).
Coupled with their 9-3 record in neutral field contests, the Bears' total of 30 wins away from home was second only to national champion Virginia in the Division I ranks last season and the best in school history.
Bears outfielder Spencer Johnson was chosen by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper as one of its Louisville Slugger National Players of the week Monday, on the heels of a notable power surge that saw the Springfield native homer four times in four games. The senior continued that hot streak with a game-tying homer in the ninth inning of Tuesday's match-up with Oklahoma State, giving him six home runs in his last seven games dating back to Feb. 27. Johnson ranks fifth nationally with an average home run rate of 0.55 per contest, while his six home runs are tops in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Last week, Johnson hit .417 (5-for-12), blasting four home runs, scoring six times and driving in eight runs as part of a 4-0 week for the Bears. Johnson went deep in MSU's first two games of the week, then recorded the first two-homer game of his collegiate career in Sunday's game vs. SIUE. The Springfield Parkview High product native, who slugged 1.417 for the week, is hitting .359 and slugging .949 for the season, the latter of which leads the conference. Additionally, Johnson is second on the squad with 14 runs batted-in, thanks in large part to a pair of four-RBI games.
