Prime 9
- The Missouri State Bears will open a three-game Missouri Valley Conference series against the DBU Patriots with a nationally-televised ESPNU contest Thursday (May 2) evening at Hammons Field
- The Patriots hold a slim 16-15 overall series advantage against the Bears, despite MSU claiming six of the last seven meetings; the Bears have won five of their last six home contests against DBU since 2015, claiming MVC regular-season series in each of their two previous Valley sets in Springfield (2015 and 2017)
- The Bears and Patriots have engaged in 15 one-run games since their first meeting in 2007 and have played three more that were decided by two runs
- MSU has played the 17th-toughest non-conference schedule in the nation, as well as the 23rd-strongest overall, according to WarrenNolan.com; the Bears have matched up against clubs with .500 or better records in 35 of their 43 contests to date, including 17 games against top 50 RPI teams
- The Bears lead the MVC in pickoffs with 14 on the season; three different MSU hurlers — Logan Thomazin, Davis Schwab and Logan Wiley — have picked off three baserunners, as has catcher Logan Geha
- Junior catcher Drew Millas has reached base safely via a hit, walk or hit by pitch in a career-best 17-straight games entering Thursday's contest
- Junior first baseman Ben Whetstone leads the Valley in double plays turned (34), putouts (303) and defensive chances (327) for the season; he brings a career .333 (6-for-18) batting mark against DBU into this weekend's series
- MSU's 39 home runs as a team rank second in the MVC, while the Bears' also rank among the league's best clubs in hit by pitches (43) and walks (173), ranking third and fourth, respectively
- Dakota Kotowski moved into a tie for third on MSU's freshman home run list with his ninth of the season in Sunday's series finale with Bradley; he needs to hit six more to match Jason Hart (1996) in the No. 2 spot on the list
Leading Off
The
Missouri State Bears will be looking to stop a five-game slide when they host the
DBU Patriots in a three-game Missouri Valley Conference series at Hammons Field this weekend. The Bears and Patriots will open the series with a 6 p.m. (CDT) game Thursday (May 2) that will be televised live on
ESPNU. The two clubs will then square off in single contests Friday (6:30 p.m.) and Saturday (2 p.m.) to conclude the weekend.
The Bears (13-30, 4-8 MVC) will bring a seven-game Valley losing streak into Thursday's tilt after sustaining their first home MVC series sweep in three years last weekend against Bradley. MSU has dropped its last five games overall and finds its season record at 17 games under the .500-mark for the first time in the 56-year history of the program.
Conversely, DBU (31-13, 8-4 MVC) enters the weekend having won six of its last seven games, including a pair of MVC series victories against Bradley and Illinois State the last two weekends.
Series History
Dallas Baptist brings a 16-15 edge in the all-time series with MSU into this weekend's action. The Bears are 5-4 at Hammons Field versus the Patriots, including MVC series wins in both of DBU's previous Valley series in Springfield.
The Bears have enjoyed a run of recent success against DBU, taking three of four games in Dallas last year after sweeping the Patriots in a three-game set in Springfield in 2017. Since the beginning of the 2014 season, the Bears and Patriots have engaged in 13 contests decided by two runs or less, with 15 of the previous 31 meetings in the series having been one-run affairs.
Duffy at Home in the Top Spot
Since moving to the top of the Bears' batting order on April 12,
Jack Duffy has settled into the role of offensive catalyst nicely, logging a .340 batting mark in MSU's last 11 games. The junior outfielder has recorded six multi-hit performances, including a career-best four-hit effort vs. New Orleans on April 20, and has reached base safely in 10 of the 11 contests. The Kansas City product has also swiped three bags, including his second steal of home this season in Saturday's game against Bradley.
April Showers...
After winning its first four games in April, Missouri State staggered down the stretch to drop 11 of its last 13 contests. That swoon has ensured the Bears of their first sub-.500 month of April since 2007, when they went 4-13, and just their seventh losing April in 56 years as a varsity program. The month of April has traditionally been MSU strongest, with the Bears logging a .630 all-time April winning percentage. May has been winning time for the Bears in recent years, however, with MSU winning 78-percent (49-14 overall) of its May contests since 2015.
Missouri State's offense enjoyed a spring-like renewal in the month of April, however, registering a .277 team batting mark in its 17 games since the turn of the calendar. The Bears, who hit just .209 while being outscored by a 202-101 margin in their first 26 games, raised their team average 28 points to .237 and out-homered the opposition by a 24-15 spread to slug .461 as a club in their 17 April contests. Individually, five different Bears regulars hit better than .300 during April, including
Ben Whetstone (13 games) and
Jack Duffy (11 games), who have each logged hit streaks of 10 games or more in April. Additionally, both Whetstone and
Drew Millas reached base safely in all 17 April games.
Kotowski Climbing
Bears freshman outfielder
Dakota Kotowski turned in another strong stretch last week, hitting a team-best .429 (6-for-14) with two home runs and eight RBIs in MSU's four games against Mizzou and Bradley. Kotowski hit his eighth and ninth round-trippers of the season in the Bears' Valley series with Bradley and now shares the top spot on the MVC's home run leaderboard with five during conference play. The Channahon, Ill., native also leads the league in slugging (.775) and ranks fourth in total bases (31) during Valley play.
Additionally, he moved into a tie for third place on MSU's freshman home run list, matching the rookie season totals of
Jeremy Eierman (2016), Matt Gardner (1999) and Nick Kays (1997). Kotowski needs to club six more homers to equal the freshman total of Jason Hart (1996) in the No. 2 position on the list and 10 more to catch all-time freshman home run leader Ryan Howard (1999). MSU's group of newcomers has been instrumental in the Bears' run production so far this spring, with six first-year players combining to account for 83 of the clubs' 196 RBIs and 23 of its 39 home runs. In addition to Kotowski's performance, sophomore
Joey Polak has started 42 games at third base and ranks third in the league with three homers during MVC play.
Bash Brothers
After hitting just three home runs as a team through their first 10 games of the season, the Bears have experienced a power surge of sorts over their last 33 contests, clubbing 36 home runs. Of MSU's 39 homers so far, 23 of them have come from newcomers to the Bears roster this season, including a team-leading nine by freshman
Dakota Kotowski and seven from sophomore transfer
Joey Polak. Additionally, 12 different Bears have gone deep, seven of which have homered multiple times so far in 2019.
In their five games the week of April 2-6, the Bears homered 13 times, including a season-high five round-trippers in their 10-5 comeback win at Southern Illinois on April 5. That performance marked the first five-homer game by MSU since a six-homer game vs. Oral Roberts on April 4, 2010. Kotowski registered his second multi-homer game of the week with two long balls, and Polak became the ninth Bear in program history to hit three home runs in a game.
In Rare Company
With Missouri State's 6-1 win over New Orleans on April 19, Bears head coach
Keith Guttin moved past legendary Miami coach Ron Fraser (1,271) to move into the 19th position on the NCAA's Division I career coaching wins list. With a career record of 1,272-806 (.612), Guttin now needs 28 more victories to match the career total of Fresno State's Bob Bennett (1,300) in the No. 18 spot on the chart. Guttin is the second-winningest coach in MVC history, while his win total ranked fifth among all active Division I head coaches entering the 2019 season, his 37th at the Bears' helm.
Bears on the Radio
Once again in 2019, Meyer Communications is slated to provide live radio coverage of all 54 Missouri State regular-season games, plus all Bears' games in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament and any 2019 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.
