Missouri State Bears (3-1) at Central Arkansas Bears (1-3)
Date/Time:	Sunday, Feb. 25  |  2:00 p.m. (DH)
Site:	Bear Stadium (1,000)  |  Conway, Ark.
Follow:	Watch  |  Live Stats  |  @MSUBearBaseball
Radio:	KBFL 1060 AM/96.9 FM (Corey Riggs)  |  RadioSpringfield.com
Game Notes:	Missouri State  |  Central Arkansas
Series History:	MSU leads 14-5

PRIME 9

• The Missouri State Bears will embark on a weather-shortened weekend trip to face the Central Arkansas Bears for a Sunday (Feb. 25) doubleheader in Conway, Ark.
• The Bears, who return 18 letterwinner's from last year's 43-20 Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and NCAA Regional championship squad, were tabbed for a second-place MVC finish by the league's coaches in the Valley's annual pre-season poll
• The Bears hold a commanding 14-5 edge in their series with Central Arkansas, including a 7-3 advantage vs. the Bears on their home turf; MSU has won six straight in the series dating back to Feb. 2016
• Missouri State posted its sixth-consecutive opening day win last Friday vs. Texas Southern—as well as its sixth-straight 2-0 start after topping host Lamar at the Cardinal Classic in Beaumont, Texas; the Bears improved to 24-12 in openers under head coach Keith Guttin and 36-19 overall in season lid-lifters
• Returning first-team All-America pick Jeremy Eierman was a consensus preseason choice to repeat All-America honors this spring, earning first-team laurels from Baseball America, D1Baseball, Perfect Game and Collegiate Baseball; the Warsaw, Mo., product was also named to the USA Baseball Golden Spikes watch list
• Eierman's 32 homers over his first two collegiate campaigns represents the third-best total in school history for a Bear in his freshman and sophomore seasons    
• Senior reliever Jake Fromson also picked up some national recognition during the preseason, earning a second-team All-America citation from Collegiate Baseball, as well as a spot on the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association's Stopper of the Year watch list
• MSU's roster features four different returners who have earned All-America recognition during their respective careers, led by Eierman and Fromson, as well as Hunter Steinmetz and Dylan Coleman  
• The Bears have posted a 72-28 (.720) regular-season non-conference mark since the start of the 2015 season, as well as 61 combined come-from-behind victories over the same stretch

LEADING OFF
The Missouri State Bears will look to continue their strong start to the 2018 season this weekend when they travel to Conway, Ark., for an abbreviated series with the Central Arkansas Bears at Bear Stadium. With inclement weather featured prominently in the forcecast throughout the week, the series was shortened to a doubleheader at 2 p.m. Sunday (Feb. 25).
    
Up next, MSU will travel to Tulsa, where it will meet ORU for a midweek contest, before heading to Greenville, N.C., where the Bears will face off against St. Joseph's, ECU and Pepperdine (March 4) as part of the Keith LeClair Classic.

SERIES HISTORY
Missouri State holds a 14-5 advantage over Central Arkansas in a series that extends back to the 2008 season. MSU will bring a six-game win streak vs. UCA into this season's series. The Bears swept UCA in a three-game series at Hammons Field last March, with Jeremy Eierman homering in each of the contests. MSU posted a pair of shutouts in the series, ultimately extending their success to a program-best 10-1 start to the season with their game three win over the Bears.

This weekend's series will mark the fourth trip to Conway for Missouri State, which swept a three-game, season-opening series from the Bears to kick off the 2016 season at Bear Stadium. MSU holds a 41-20 all-time advantage against the current membership of the Southland Conference, already having split a pair of games with Lamar to open the season last weekend in Beaumont.

COLEMAN CLIMBING
Junior right-hander Dylan Coleman picked up the victory in his initial start of the 2018 season at Lamar (Feb. 16), holding the Cardinals to one run on three hits in the 11-2 Bears' win. He fanned seven hitters, raising his MSU career total to 195 punchouts, passing Cody Schumacher (189) and moving into a tie for 22nd on the Bears' all-time strikeout list (along with Chris Krawczyk). 

Coleman, who fanned an MVC-high 106 batters in 2016, needs five more K's to catch Tim Clubb in the 21st position on the chart. With 15 mound victories, he also needs five more wins to crack the Bears' all-time top 10 for victories.

ROAD TO SUCCESS
MSU has proven to be hard to stop on the road over the past three seasons, logging a 54-30 (.643) record in such contests. Including their 17-6 record in neutral-field games over the same stretch, the Bears have gone 71-36 (.664) away from Hammons Field since the start of the 2015 season.

The Bears went 19-13 in true road games a year ago, after finishing with a program-record 21 wins in 27 road contests in 2015. MSU's 0.857 win percentage on the road represented their best since 1978, when they posted an identical percentage with a 12-2 road mark. 

GOING DEEP
Missouri State racked up a Missouri Valley Conference-best 160 home runs over the last two years, ranking among the top 12 teams in the nation in both 2016 and 2017. Last season, the Bears went a perfect 21-0 when hitting at least two home runs in a game, led by Jeremy Eierman's 23 long balls on the year. The junior shortstop enters the 2018 season with 32 career bombs to his credit, after combining with 2017 first-round MLB Draft pick Jake Burger to form the most potent 1-2 power punch in the country (44 homers) last spring.

The Bears powered up to hit three home runs on opening weekend in Beaumont. Surprisingly, all three round-trippers originated off the bats of players who entered the season with a combined total of zero career homers for the Bears. Jack Duffy delivered an opposite-field shot in MSU's season opener vs. Texas Southern, before Brooks Zimmerman went deep in game two against Lamar. Finally, Ben Whetstone launched a long solo shot as part of a 4-for-5 afternoon in the Bears' 6-5 win over Texas Southern in their final game at the Cardinal Classic.

NON-CON DOMINATION
MSU has been nearly unstoppable against non-conference competition over the last three seasons, compiling a 72-28 (.720) record in regular-season games versus non-league foes since the start of the 2015 season. The Bears, who have won 30 of their last 39 regular-season non-conference home games, have hit .297 as a team, while out-scoring their non-conference opponents by a 705-410 margin at Hammons Field. MSU has hit 107 homers while allowing only 39 long balls against non-league opponents over the same stretch.

COMEBACK KIDS
Missouri State has made a habit of eliminating opposition leads over the last three seasons, totaling 61 come-from-behind victories out of 133 total wins since the start of the 2015 season. The Bears rallied for their 18th come-from-behind victory of the 2017 season with their walkoff win over Oklahoma State in the opening round of the NCAA Fayetteville Regional. In 2016, the Bears posted 17 comeback wins, on the heels of a 2015 season that saw them claim victory in 24 such contests.

MSU's comeback from a five-run deficit at Evansville on April 29, 2017 matched its biggest rally in the last seven years. In 2016, the Bears overcame a 5-0 Arkansas State lead, coming all the way back to defeat the Red Wolves by a 15-11 final tally. The Bears' last come-from-behind win after trailing by five runs occurred on May 26, 2010, when MSU overcame a 7-2 deficit against Southern Illinois at the MVC Championship in Wichita. MSU was particularly resilient in MVC play in 2015, capturing eight of their 18 conference victories in comeback fashion.