Prime 9
- The Missouri State Bears will open the home portion of their 2020 schedule, as well as a five-game homestand, with a three-game non-conference set against the Maine Black Bears at Hammons Field
- Keith Guttin ranks fourth on the NCAA's Division I wins list for active coaches and 19th all-time with 1,285 victories for his 38-year career; he needs 15 wins to catch Fresno State's Bob Bennett in the 18th spot on the chart
- MSU is 10-6 in home openers since moving into Hammons Field in 2004, including wins in seven of its last nine home  debuts since 2011; The Bears, who will play their 400th game at Hammons on Sunday, are 260-137 overall in their 16 seasons at the facility
- Since snapping a lengthy scoring drought Feb. 25 at ORU, the Bears have plated 30 runs in their last 41 turns at bat; MSU has produced 10 different multi-run scoring rallies over the same span after logging just two such rallies in their first 67 innings of the 2020 season
- Ben Whetstone ranks among the Bears' career defensive leaders in several categories, including second in career fielding (.992) and 10th in both double plays (97) and putouts (970)
- MSU ranks third in the Valley in both ERA (4.05) and double plays turned (8), as well as fourth in team fielding (.975)
- The Bears have won 42 of their last 64 regular-season non-conference home games, outscoring their non-league opponents by a 856-575 margin at Hammons Field over the same stretch
- The duo of Hayden Juenger and Forrest Barnes have formed a dominant one-two punch out of the Bears' bullpen, combining to go 3-0 with three saves and a 2.84 ERA in 11 total appearances
- Drake Baldwin brings a six-game hit streak into Friday's game; the freshman leads the Bears in hitting (.333), hits (15), on-base percentage (.388), total bases (22) and slugging percentage (.489)
Leading Off
After wrapping up their season-opening 12-game road swing with at Oklahoma State on Tuesday, the Missouri State Bears return to the friendly confines of Hammons Field Friday (March 6) to open the home portion of their 2020 schedule with a three-game set against the Maine Black Bears. Friday's series opener is slated for a 3 p.m. first pitch, while game two on Saturday (March 7) will get underway at 2 p.m. and Sunday's (March 8) finale will begin at Noon (CST).
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Missouri State (6-6) turned in its best offensive effort of the season Tuesday in Stillwater, posting four different rallies of at least two runs to post an 11-10 win over the Cowboys. The Bears received balanced contributions from up and down its lineup, led by big games from
Jack Duffy and
Dakota Kotowski, who combined to record six hits and seven RBIs.
Maine (0-10) enters the series in search of its first victory of the season following a four-game sweep at Louisiana Tech last weekend.
Series History
Friday's contest will mark the first meeting of the two former NCAA Division I College World Series qualifiers. The Bears have played just two teams from the America East Conference in their 57-year history, amassing a 2-1 mark against UMBC (1-0) and Stony Brook (1-1).
Welcome Home
Missouri State will open its 2020 home slate Friday looking to extend a recent home-field advantage of unprecedented proportions in the history of the MSU program. The Bears have logged four of their top single-season home win totals since the 2015 season, going 17-6 at home last spring after a 21-7 home mark in 2017, a Hammons Field-record 22 victories in 2016 and the Bears' best-ever home win percentage at Hammons with a 19-3 (.864) mark in 2015.
Those four seasons give the Bears a combined 79-24 (.767) home record over the four-year stretch. The Bears have won 38 of their last 53 regular-season non-conference home games, outscoring their non-league opponents by a 786-494 margin at Hammons Field since the start of the 2015 season.
Elite Company
The Bears' Feb. 25 game at ORU marked the beginning of a notable string of elite opponents for Missouri State, which will play nine-straight games against NCAA Division I College World Series qualifying teams and 16 of 17 contests overall against CWS-qualifying clubs.
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MSU will play two games against ORU (who appeared in Omaha in 1978), three against Rice (seven appearances), one game with Oklahoma State (20 appearances) and three contests against Maine (seven appearances) over the period Feb. 25-March 8. Following a midweek game against SIU Edwardsville (March 11), the Bears will then play seven more games against three additional CWS qualifiers (UC Irvine, Alabama and San Jose State) before opening Valley play with a three-game set at Bradley, which has made two of its own CWS trips.
New Kids on the Block Hangin' Tough
The Bears offense has been bolstered by the addition of several talented newcomers over the season's first three weeks. MSU's top three hitters are all new to the program this year, with freshman
Drake Baldwin leading the club with a .333 average and nine RBIs through the first 12 games. Junior transfer
Grant Wood has gotten off to a hot start as well, batting .304 with hits in each of his first nine games as a Bear, and freshman outfielder
Greg Ziegler has turned in a .296 batting mark with three multi-hit performances to date.
Cardiac Cubs
The Bears posted their third come-from-behind victory of the season Tuesday at OSU, following comeback wins at Austin Peay (Feb. 20) and ORU (Feb. 25) in the first two weeks of the season. MSU made the comeback rally an art form in accumulating the most overall victories over a four-year period (170) in program history from 2015-18. Since the start of the 2015 season, the Bears have rallied for a victory on 93 separate occasions, including 21 times in 2018, which represented 52.5 percent of their overall season win total (40). Last spring, the Bears completed their second comeback victory from at least a seven-run deficit last season when they erased an 8-1 deficit en route to a 10-9 win over Evansville on May 11. That effort followed an 11-8 comeback win over Oklahoma (March 15), in what is believed to be the largest come-from-behind victory program history. MSU wiped out an 8-0, seventh-inning deficit by scoring seven times in the seventh, three more in the eighth and one in the ninth.
Getting Offensive
Since enduring a 34-inning scoreless drought over parts of five games from Feb. 20-25, the Bears' offense has heated up to score 30 runs in their last 41 innings, averaging 6.2 runs per contest in their last five games.
Drake Baldwin has paced the Bears at the plate, hitting .381 with eight RBIs, while
Jack Duffy has batted .350. Furthermore, MSU has posted 10 different multi-run rallies over the same stretch after logging only two such rallies over its first 67 turns at bat of the season.
In Rare Company
With Missouri State's 6-1 win over New Orleans on April 19, 2019, Bears head coach
Keith Guttin moved past legendary Miami coach Ron Fraser (1,271) to climb to the 19th position on the NCAA's Division I career coaching wins list.
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With a career record of 1,285-818 (.611), Guttin now needs 15 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 ranks fourth among all active Division I head coaches entering the 2020 season, his 38th at the Bears' helm.
Non-Con Domination
MSU has been nearly unstoppable against non-conference competition over the last five seasons, compiling an 99-66 (.600) record in regular-season games versus non-league foes since the start of the 2015 season. The Bears have won 42 of their last 64 regular-season non-conference home games, outscoring their non-league opponents by a 856-575 margin at Hammons Field over the same stretch.
Bears on the Radio
Once again in 2020, Meyer Communications is slated to provide live radio coverage of all 56 Missouri State regular-season games, plus all Bears' games in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament and any 2020 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
Missouri State University, in conjunction with SIDEARM Sports, launched a new partnership in August 2016, unveiling a reconstructed MissouriStateBears.com, the official MSU Athletics web site. The revamped MissouriStateBears.com will provide MSU fans with improved features and overall customer service. The new-and-improved site uses the latest technology to provide fans with a seamless, robust experience unique to Missouri State University.
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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 ESPN. 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 ESPN+/ESPN3.
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