Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (16-7) at Missouri State Bears (15-8)
Site:	Hammons Field (8,000)  |  Springfield, Mo.
Date:	Tuesday, March 28
First Pitch:	6:30 p.m.
Follow:	Live Stats  |  @MSUBearBaseball
Radio:	KBFL 1060 AM/96.9 FM  |  RadioSpringfield.com
Game Notes:	Missouri State  |  Oral Roberts  |  MVC Notebook
Series History:	ORU leads 30-22
Tickets:	MissouriStateBears.com

PRIME 9

• Missouri State opens its longest home stand of the season (nine games), which will include midweek matchups with ORU and Kansas and Arkansas, as well as MVC series against Bradley and Dallas Baptist
• ORU holds a 30-22 advantage over MSU, but the Bears have won 12 of the previous 20 games played on their home field in the series; MSU is also looking for its third-straight win over ORU after a 9-5 victory in the two clubs' first meeting of the season in Tulsa on Feb. 21 
• As a team, the Bears rank sixth in all of Division I baseball with five shutouts on the season; MSU also ranks ninth in team ERA (2.65), 10th in both team WHIP (1.11) and hits allowed per 9.0 IP (7.07) and 14th in strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.25) 
• The Bears have won five of their first seven home games this spring, hitting .306 as a club; both Jake Burger and Jeremy Eierman are batting .423 with four home runs apiece at Hammons Field in 2017 
• Burger brings a career-best 14-game hit streak into the week and rates among the D-I leaders in home runs (9), total bases (71) and slugging (.769); with 34 career home runs, he needs just one more to crack MSU's all-time top 10 list
• With 1,191 wins as MSU's bench boss, Keith Guttin ranks 25th among all NCAA Division I coaches for career victories; he trails Al Ogletree in the No. 24 position by 17 wins
• Both Burger and Eierman are approaching career hits milestones, with Burger needing four to reach the 200-hit club and Eierman just three hits shy of the 100-mark    
• MSU has produced 46 come-from-behind wins since the beginning of the 2015 season, including five this season
• Bears starting pitchers combined to allow a total of four earned runs over 25.1 innings spanning their four outings last week; Jordan Knutson picked up his fourth win Friday at CMU, turning in his fourth quality start and his fifth outing of at least 7.0 innings this season 

LEADING OFF
The Missouri State Bears return to Hammons Field Tuesday (March 28) to open their longest home stand of the season with a 6:30 p.m. non-conference contest against the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles. MSU claimed a 9-5 win over ORU in the two clubs' first meeting of the season in Tulsa and will be looking for their third-straight victory in the series.

MSU will be looking to snap out of a March slump in which the Bears have dropped seven of their last 12 contests on the heels of a 10-1 start to the season. This past weekend, the Bears claimed a 12-1 win in their series opener at Central Michigan, only to drop the second and third games (and the series) for the second consecutive weekend.

ORU enters the game on a hot streak with wins in seven straight games. The Golden Eagles have swept their first two conference series against North Dakota State and South Dakota State, in addition to a midweek win over fellow Valley foe Wichita State last Tuesday.

Up next, the Bears open Missouri Valley Conference play with a three-game series against Bradley, beginning with an 8 p.m. game Friday (March 31).

SERIES HISTORY
ORU brings a 30-22 edge in its series with the Bears into play Tuesday, while MSU has claimed 12 of the previous 20 meetings in Springfield. MSU has won two in a row versus the Golden Eagles, including a 9-5 victory in the two clubs' first matchup of the season on Feb. 21 in Tulsa. The Bears also claimed a 5-0 victory in Springfield last March. 

MSU has posted a 61-40 all-time mark against the current membership of the Summit League, thanks in large part to its big edge in its series with Western Illinois (28-5). The Bears went 3-0 versus the conference in 2016, with a pair of March home victories over the Leathernecks in addition to the blanking of ORU.

BURGER ON A ROLL
Jake Burger continued his early-season hot streak this past week, going 10-for-17 in the Bears four games to earn the fifth MVC Player of the Week nod of his Missouri State career. The MSU third baseman stretched his career-best hit streak to 14 games by logging multi-hit outings in all four contests. 

The preseason All-American and Golden Spikes Award candidate  has hit a scorching .491 (26-for-53) and slugged .962 with seven homers and 18 RBIs over the course of his streak and has now reached base safely in 24 consecutive games, including all 23 this season. Burger homered three times in the Bears' series win at Minnesota (March 10-12) and has an NCAA Division I-best nine  long balls so far this season. 

WELCOME HOME
After spending the bulk of the first six weeks of the season away from Hammons Field, the Bears return to Springfield this week to open a season-long nine-game home stand. MSU has been successful, both at home and on the road so far in 2017, claiming wins in five of its first seven home dates to go along with 10 road/neutral-field victories. 

The Bears will be looking to extend a recent home-field advantage of unprecedented proportions in the history of the MSU program. Since the start of the 2015 season, the Bears have posted a 46-13 (.780) record at Hammons Field, including 29 wins in their last 35 home games versus non-conference foes. The Bears logged a Hammons Field record 22 victories at home last spring after piling up 19 home wins in 2015.

Last season, the Bears hit .320 as a team, averaged 8.8 runs per game and out-homered the opposition by a 39-11 margin at Hammons.

SIXTH SENSE
The Bears continued a recent trend of sixth-inning dominance this past weekend, posting sixth-inning tallies in two of their three games at Central Michigan. For the season, the Bears have outscored their opponents by a combined 29-2 margin in the sixth, finally allowing their first sixth-inning runs of the season in a March 19 setback to Memphis. 

MSU has tallied at least one sixth-inning run in 12 of its 23 games to date, going 8-4 in those contests. Jake Burger has been particularly lethal in the sixth this season, going 7-for-10 with four of his nine homers and 10 total RBIs.

BEARS SWEEP WEEKLY VALLEY HONORS
After playing key roles in a pair of Missouri State victories last week, Jake Burger and Austin Knight have earned a clean sweep of the Missouri Valley Conference weekly honors, the league office announced Monday.

Burger heated up at the plate to help the Bears to a split of their four games last week, hitting .588 (10-for-17) with five RBIs overall. He logged multi-hit games in all four contests and drove in two runs in both of Missouri State's victories. In Friday's series opener with Central Michigan, Burger went 3-for-5 with a pair of RBIs, before gashing the Chippewas for three more hits in the nightcap of the doubleheader. In Sunday's finale, he added two more hits to extend his career-best hit streak to 14 games.

Knight turned in seven shutout innings to help Missouri State snap a two-game losing streak with a 7-2 non-conference victory over New Orleans. The junior right-hander scattered five hits over his 7.0 innings and worked his way out of trouble in three consecutive innings after the Privateers put their first two hitters aboard. Knight kept the visitors at bay by inducing three double-play balls en route to picking up his second victory of the season.

The award is the fifth career Valley Player of the Week citation for Burger and the second in three weeks for the junior third baseman, while Knight earns his first MVC Pitcher of the Week honor.