Evansville Purple Aces (6-16, 0-0 MVC) at No. 23 Missouri State Bears (19-7, 2-1 MVC)
Site	Hammons Field (8,000)  |  Springfield, Mo.
Game 1	Friday, April 6  |  1:02 p.m.
Game 2	Saturday, April 7  |  3:02 p.m.
Game 3	Sunday, April 8  |  1:02 p.m.
Watch:	The Valley on ESPN3
Radio:	KBFL 1060 AM/96.9 FM
Follow:	Live Stats  |  @MSUBearBaseball
Game Notes:	Missouri State  |  Evansville
Series History:	MSU leads 53-40 (25-18 vs. UE in Springfield)
Tickets:	MissouriStateBears.com

PRIME 9

• Missouri State enters the week with the No. 28 RPI in all of Division I baseball; the Bears also rejoined both Collegiate Baseball's Division I poll (No. 24) and D1Baseball's Top 25 (No. 23) on Monday 
• The Bears lead the series with Evansville by a 53-40 margin, including a 25-18 edge at home vs. UE
• Entering its longest home stand of the season, MSU has won seven straight home games and is 8-2 at Hammons Field this season; the Bears are 70-20 (.778) at home since the start of the 2015 season
• MSU leads the Valley in team earned run average (3.16), opponent batting (.222), fewest earned runs allowed (82) and double plays turned (22); Individually, Dylan Coleman paces the circuit in strikeouts (57), while Drew Millas ranks fourth in RBIs (29) and Jeremy Eierman rates fourth in home runs (5) and fifth in runs scored (25) 
• Ben Whetstone has reached base safely via a hit, walk or hit by pitch in each of the Bears' 26 contests this season; the sophomore first baseman has also been solid in games following a Missouri State defeat, hitting .409 with all four of his home runs and seven RBIs in such outings to help the Bears go 6-0 after a loss 
• Eierman homered twice and drove in a career-best seven runs in the Bears' 8-2 win over CSUN on March 25, climbing to ninth on the Bears' all-time home runs list with the 36th and 37th round-trippers of his career; he trails Ben Carlson in the No. 8 spot by one home run
• MSU has won 12 of its last 14 games since March 11, thanks in large part to a bullpen that has posted a 1.10 ERA and allowed an opponent batting average of just .176; additionally, John Privitera and Matt Brown have drawn a combined 25 walks over the same stretch, while posting on-base percentages of .466 and .448, respectively 
• Head coach Keith Guttin (1,238) needs four more victories to match the career total of former Southern Illinois coach Itchy Jones for the No. 21 position on the NCAA's Division I coaching wins list     
• Missouri State has 69 combined come-from-behind victories over the last four seasons, including 10 through its first 26 contests of the 2018 campaign 

LEADING OFF
Winners of 12 of their last 14 games, the Missouri State Bears will look to continue their hot streak this weekend at Hammons Field against the Evansville Purple Aces. The Bears will open their longest home stand of the season Friday (April 6) with a 1 p.m. contest, before facing the Aces in single games Saturday (3 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.).

The Bears (19-7) jumped 47 spots to No. 28 in the Division I RPI ratings last week, after recording a road win at Kansas and sweeping a Friday doubleheader from Indiana State to run its win streak to a season-best eight games. The Sycamores stopped MSU's streak Saturday with a 6-4 decision, but the Bears will enter Friday's game 6-0 following a loss this season.

Evansville (6-16) will be opening Valley play this weekend looking to right the ship, after losing 11 of its last 12 games. The Aces were swept in a three-game non-conference road series with Creighton last weekend, before dropping a midweek contest with Murray State Wednesday.

SERIES HISTORY
Missouri State brings a 53-40 advantage over Evansville into the weekend, as well as a 25-18 edge over the Aces in Springfield. Last year, MSU took both meetings with UE in Evansville, overcoming early Aces leads in both contests to extend their road win streak in the series to six straight games. Jeremy Eierman homered twice and drove in four runs in the 13-8 opening-game win, before Justin Paulsen tied a Missouri State single-game record with three doubles in the second tilt.

Evansville has enjoyed its fair share of success against the Bears at Hammons Field in recent years, claiming two of the clubs' last three regular-season series in Springfield dating back to 2010. Overall, the Bears are 14-10 against UE at home since moving into Hammons in 2004.

STARTING STRONG
With their MVC series win at Indiana State over the weekend, the Bears have now won 12 of their last 13 Valley openers and have won or split 11 of their last 13 MVC-opening series. Additionally, MSU is a combined 26-10 in its opening conference series since 2006. 

Missouri State posted its best-ever-start to a Valley season in 2017 as part of its 22-game MVC win streak. The Bears won their first 18 conference games before falling to Illinois State (May 19) in their regular-season finale. With their 8-5 win over the Redbirds on May 18, the Bears ran their regular-season Valley win streak to a league-record 22-straight games, dating back to their May 15, 2016 win at DBU. They surpassed the previous all-time win streak by an MVC club with their title-clinching win vs. Indiana State on May 13, topping Wichita State's 19-game league win streak (1981-82). 

STREAKING AT HAMMONS
With five home victories on their last home stand, the Bears ran their 2018 home mark to 8-2 and extended their current Hammons Field win streak to seven straight games. That streak represents the sixth different home win streak of at least six games since the start of the 2015 season. 

The Bears have logged their top two single-season home win totals over the last two years, going 21-7 at home last spring, following a Hammons Field record 22 victories in 2016. In 2015, MSU posted its best-ever showing at Hammons with a 19-3 (.864) mark, giving the Bears a combined 70-20 (.778) home record, including a 23-7 mark in MVC play, since the start of the 2015 season.

STEINMETZ ON A ROLL
After starting the season with only five hits in his first 30 at-bats, junior outfielder Hunter Steinmetz has keyed a recent surge that has seen the Bears go 15-4 since March 3. Over the same span, Steinmetz has hit .342 (25-for-73) with 19 RBIs and 17 runs scored. The Springfield native has recorded a hit in nine straight games, hitting .389 over the streak after going 7-for-17 (.417) in the Bears' four outings last week.

POLL POSITION
With three wins in four games last week, the Bears solidified their position in two major college baseball polls, moving into the Collegiate Baseball Top 30 (24th) and D1Baseball.com (23rd) polls, while Missouri State saw its RPI climb 48 spots to a peak of No. 27 over the weekend. Each position represents a regular-season best for the Bears, who have now garnered a regular-season top 25 ranking in each of the last four seasons. MSU, which is 3-1 versus ranked foes this season, was tabbed for No. 22 in Collegiate Baseball's preseason poll and No. 30 in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association preseason poll.

SHUTDOWN STAFF
MSU pitching has locked into high gear over the last 16 games, posting a 2.92 team ERA and winning 13 of those outings. In all, nine different Bears hurlers have logged sub-3.00 ERA's over the same span, while the staff as a whole has limited the opposition to a .199 batting mark. 

A pair of freshmen have led the charge with Ty Buckner going 2-1 with a 1.99 ERA and Connor Sechler has allowed just one run in 12.2 combined innings, over which he has fanned 18 batters and walked just two to go 3-0 with two saves. The Bears have given up an average of 3.4 runs per outing and have yielded 10 or more hits just twice during the same stretch. 

COLEMAN CLIMBING
Junior right-hander Dylan Coleman picked up his fifth mound victory of the season last Friday with a 4-3 decision over Indiana State, striking out seven Sycamores over 6.2 innings to move up to the seventh position on MSU's career strikeout list (245), passing a pair of former first-round MLB Draft picks in Jon Harris and Ross Detwiler. Coleman, who fanned an MVC-high 106 batters in 2016, needs two more K's to match the career totals of Jordan Knutson (2014-17) and Jarrod Mays (1994-96), currently tied for fifth on the list with 247 career strikeouts.

Coleman also needs one more win to crack the Bears' all-time top 10 list for that category. With 19 wins, he trails five different Bears — most recently Sam Perez (2013-16) — in the 10th spot with 20 victories.

BEARS ON RADIO
Once again in 2018, Meyer Communications is slated to provide live radio coverage of all 52 Missouri State regular-season games, plus all Bears' games in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament and any 2018 postseason play. 

The broadcasts can be heard primarily on KBFL 1060 AM and 96.9 FM in Springfield with Art Hains, Ben Goss and Corey Riggs describing the action. An online audio stream is available through KBFL's website via RadioSpringfield.com. 

BEARS ON ESPN
In 2015, ESPN and the Missouri Valley Conference announced a 10-year extension to their current media rights agreement that will provide increased coverage of conference events across ESPN platforms through the 2023-24 academic year. Fans can keep tabs on the Bears through The Valley on ESPN3. As part of the deal, ESPN, the MVC and its 10 member institutions will work jointly to develop in-house production capabilities at each campus that will provide significant coverage for multiple sports on ESPN3. This season, 14 MSU home games are slated to be carried by the ESPN family of networks, including each of this weekend's contests against Evansville on ESPN3 (WatchESPN app).