Starting 9
1) Missouri State (7-12) opens its 35th and final Missouri Valley Conference season this week when Bradley (3-13) visits Hammons Field for a three-game series. Game times are 6:30 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. The Bears are home for two consecutive weekends to begin league play as Belmont comes to Springfield to close out March, with a midweek trip to Arkansas on March 25 sandwiched in between.
2) Missouri State is 77-45 all-time against Bradley with a 42-17 record in Springfield. The Bears have won the last four in Springfield and six of seven overall.
3) The Bears have homered in 121 of the last 150 games, and rank 14th nationally with 339 long balls since the beginning of the 2022 season, when first-year head coach Joey    Hawkins took over as hitting coach. MoState's 114 homers last season ranked second in school and fourth in MVC history.
4) Zack Stewart (35),
Caden Bogenpohl (23),
Taeg Gollert (23) and
Nick Rodriguez (21) all have at least 20 homers in their MSU careers, and the current roster has combined for 139 round-trippers in their time at MoState.
5) Missouri State's pitching staff leads the MVC and ranks 48th nationally with 10.0 strikeouts per nine innings. The Bears' 2.20 K/BB ratio also leads the Valley and ranks 79th nationally, and the Bears have struck out at least seven hitters in all but two games this season.
   Two-thirds of the Bears' weekend rotation (
Michael Yusypchuk and
Jackson Holmes) have earned MVC Pitcher of the Week honors, while
Tyler Charlton (1st - 30), Yusypchuk (2nd - 29) and Holmes (5th - 28) are all in the top five in strikeouts.
6) Four former Freshman All-Americans are on the MSU roster.
Nick Rodriguez received the honor in 2022 at Charleston Southern,
Garrett Ferguson and
Zack Stewart each landed on multiple such teams for MSU in 2023, and
Caden Bogenpohl did the same last year for the Bears.
7) D1Baseball tabbed the Bears as the favorite to win the MVC this season, with sophomore
Caden Bogenpohl as its preseason player of the year and
Michael Yusypchuk as its freshman of the year. The MVC coaches poll was released on March 17 and also tabs the Bears to win, with Bogenpohl and
Nick Rodriguez earning all-MVC honors.
8) For the first time since 1983, the Bears have a new coach.
Joey Hawkins, who played for the Bears from 2012-15 and served as assistant coach from 2022-24, is just the third head coach in program history. Bill Rowe managed the Bears from 1964-82 before becoming the school's athletic director. Keith Guttin, who played for MSU under Rowe, succeeded him in 1983 before retiring after the 2024 campaign.    In their respective first seasons, Rowe went 6-12 overall in 1964, while Guttin's 1983 club went 32-11 and led the nation with a .367 batting average.
9) The 2025 season will be Missouri State's 35th and final year in the MVC. The university accepted an invitation to Conference USA on May 10, 2024, and will officially join that league on July 1, 2025. The baseball Bears own the most league wins (471) and highest MVC winning percentage (.581) of any current league school with six regular season championships and five tournament titles in 34 seasons.
