SCOUTING THE PANTHERS: The Panthers are unbeaten on the young season (4-0) and are coming of a 14-5 victory over Mercer on Tuesday... Georgia State enters the 2011 season after a second place place finish in the CAA... the Panthers finished 34-23-1 overall last season and 17-6-1 in the CAA... the Panthers were strong at home as they collected a 23-7 overall mark and 11-1 in conference at Panthersville... the tie came on April 25 game with VCU, the game went 10 innings and was called due to travel day stipulations... GSU returns 22 letterwinners from last season and will look to replace four lost letterwinners... head coach Greg Frady (5th Season) will look to CAA Preseason Player of the Year outfielder Mark Micowski... Micowski also was named to the Preseason All-CAA after a season where he hit .392 and stole 17 bags, he also acored 69 runs... other All-CAA selections includes corner infielder Brandon Williams and outfielder Ryan Fleming... Williams hit .408 with 10 HR and 73 RBI. Flemming hit .375 with 13 HR and 59 RBI... the pitching staff will look to Aidan Francis and Charley Olson for repeat of their solid 2010 seasons. Francis was 6-3 last season with a 4.72 ERA and 75 K's... Olson also struck out 75 hitters and collected a 5-4 record...Justin Malone, RHP/SS, returns after he recorded a team-leading five saves... key loses for the Panthers include 3B Bradley Logan (.362, 11 HR, 60 RBI), OF Carl Moniz (.369, 10 HR, 63 RBI) and RHP David Buchanan (4-2, 4.72, 53 K's).

UNPRECEDENTED?: Bryan Jordan delivered the first hit of the 2011 Leatherneck season with his third inning big fly on Feb. 18th against Samford.

OTHER STARTER NOTES: Bryan Jordan started all 53 games last season for Western... Tom Lilja was in the lineup 51 times and John Koszulinksi started 43 times for the Leathernecks... Dan Dispensa had started every game before missing the end of the season due to injury but was able to collect 41 starts... Chris Giglio was a a steady option on the infield and started 49 games... Speedster Anthony Kaskadden started 45 games for the Purple & Gold.

FAMILIAR FACES: Several players knew each other prior to arriving on campus... coming from the College of Lake County are: Anthony Kaskadden and Travis Pedersen... Bryan Jordan and Beau Below were teammates at Black Hawk College...Matt Igara, Steve Kedroski, Ryan Wachholder and Alexander Zarate all joined the Leathernecks this season after spending time at Heartland C.C... John Koszulinski, Chris Giglio, Chris Macek and Tom Lilja were high school teammates at Lincoln-Way East.

OUCH: Western Illinois leads The Summit League in hit by pitches with nine... Next best is Southern Utah with four... John Koszulinski leads the league as he was hit four times in Birmingham, Ala...  Anthony Kaskadden is second with two.

DISPENSA HEALTHY: The Leathernecks' outfield will receive a boost as OF Dan Dispensa returns after missing the last 12 games of 2010 with an injury to his wrist... He has also turned all of his attention to baseball after participating in football and baseball at Western in 2009-10.

WOLVERINE STATE: Six new Leathernecks this season hail from Michigan... Tyler Baratono (Allen Park), Garrett Bolt (Wheeler), Jake Moore (Romeo), Dan Owenby (Rochester Hills), Tyler Owings (Saline) and Philip Tolman (Allendale).

GRAND THEFT: Anthony Kaskadden stole four bases on Feb. 19th to set his career high...  He had previously stile three bases in a game on two occasions... Kaskadden is the first to swipe four bags since Steve Knapp did it against Oakland on April 16, 2006... A.K. stole third twice against Samford.

ALWAYS A LEATHERNECK: Western Illinois roster looks very different than it did a season ago and 15 of those members made their Leatherneck debut against Samford... Western has 22 newcomers, 17 from the JC ranks and five from high school.

FIRST INNING FRUSTRATIONS: The Leathernecks have left 34 runners on base during the first three games... Western Illinois stranded 15 runners during game one with Samford... The bases were loaded in the first inning with one out but Western was only able to push across the one run... Anthony Kaskadden stole second and third with no outs but was stranded by the following hitters.

MONEYBALL: Tom Lilja and Bryan Jordan currently have OPS (On-Base Percentage + Slugging) over 1.000... Lilja is at 1.500 and Jordan is at 1.067... Anthony Kaskadden is at a 3.20 in the runs created category... Despite only hitting .204 the Leathernecks are hitting .297 with balls in play.

DOUBLE PLAY COMBO: In the third inning of Sunday's game with Samford, the Leathernecks turned their first double play of the season... It was of the 4-6-3 variety as Tyler Baratono fed Austin Cowen to help starter Alexander Zarate clear the bases.

TOTAL BASES WATCH: Tom Lilja and Bryan Jordan lead the team with six total bases this season.

NOT ON KOZ: Senior cather John Koszulinski has already thrown out two runners trying to steal in four attempts... Last season he threw out nine opponents on the basepaths... Only one other Summit League catcher threw out two runners over the season opening weekend.

ESTABLISHING ROLES: The Leatherneck bullpen had flashes of exellence over the weekend... Dan Russell was the first to make an appearance and went 4.1 innings and struck out five Samford Bulldogs... Philip Tolman appeared in Ryan Wachholder's strong start and tossed 3.0 innings and just allowed one run... Dustin Hunter struck out the side in the fifth inning on Sunday, all swinging.

MOMENTUM: The Leathernecks will try and capture the momentum gained from an emotional victory in the final game of 2010... Western knocked off the regular season champions South Dakota State, 15-14... That win capped of a nine-day stretch which saw Western play its best baseball of the season.

LEATHERNECKS PICKED FIFTH IN PRESEASON POLL: Western Illinois was picked fifth by the Summit League coaches in the preseason poll... Oral Roberts was picked as the favorite to take home the league title with 49 overall points and seven first-place votes... SDSU received 43 points and a single first-place vote... finishing just three points ahead of the Leathernecks were Oakland and Southern Utah in a tie for third with 27 points... NDSU finished right behind Western in 6th and 23 points... Centenary and IPFW round out the eight-team poll with 17 and 14 points, respectively.

EXTRA BASES: Western Illinois hitters combined for 152 multiple-hit games last season... Jason Summers recorded 23 games with two or more hits while Cole Waddell (19), Bryan Jordan (19), John Koszulinksi (18), Anthony Kaskadden (16), Tom Lilja (15), Dan Dispensa (11) and Chris Giglio (11) each had 10 or more multi-hit games... Summers recorded a team-leading 14 games with three or more hits while Waddell and Giglio each had a season-best five hit games... the team also combined for 77 multi-RBI games from individual players...Cole Waddell led the team with 13 games with two or more RBI... John Koszulinski matched that with 13 games with two or more RBI including two games where he knocked in five runs... Jason Summers recorded 10 games with multiple RBI... Bryan Jordan tallied nine games of multiple RBI... six players had hitting streaks of 10 or more games last season... Dan Dispensa carries an active one-game hitting streak into this season but held the team-high 16-game hitting streak prior in the season... Jason Summers had a 14-game streak... Tom Lilja and John Koszulinski each had 11-game streaks to their names.... Cole Waddell also had a 10-game streak during 2010... Western returns three players who have career-batting averages of .300 or better... those players are John Koszulinski (.336), Tom Lilja (.319) and Bryan Jordan (.308)... the Leathernecks' longest winning-streak in 2010 was three games... the team's longest losing-streak was 10 games from April 18-May 2.