MACOMB, Ill. – The Western Illinois baseball program will look to put its first winning streak of the season together in St. Louis, Mo. The Leathernecks will face Saint Louis on Wednesday at 12 p.m.

Originally, Western Illinois was to play Saint Louis on Tuesday and Northern Illinois on Wednesday. The schedule has been changed due to the weather in St. Louis.

The Billikens lead the all-time series 18-17-1 against the Leathernecks.

The Matchup
Who: Western Illinois vs. Saint Louis
When: Wednesday, March 16 (12 p.m.)
Location: St. Louis, Mo.

Coverage
Radio • Rocky Vision (free) Flagship Station

Live Stats • SLUBillikens.com (free)

SCOUTING THE BILLIKENS: Saint Louis will head into this week's match up with a 10-4 record and an 8-2 mark at home...head coach Darin Hendrickson is in his third year at the helm and currently has a 97-87 record with SLU... as a team Saint Louis is hitting .293... Mike Levine has paced the offense so far this season with his .360 batting average and nine RBI... Jordan Hammerman is hitting .354 with five RBI... Marco DiRoma has a .333 average and four RBI... Nick Becker provides some speed for the Billikens with eight stolen bases and has also driven in 10 runs... the staff's ERA is 2.89 and opponents are hitting .244 against the Billiken staff... Jim Foster has three wins in six appearances despite not making a start this season... Foster also has a 1.08 ERA in his 8.1 innings of work... Alex Aleman has made four starts and is 1-0 with a 2.31 ERA... Zack Smith is 2-1 with a 2.50 ERA in his three starts... Jerry Mancuso is 1-1 in his four starts and leads the team with 13 K's.

CDB/WIU: College Baseball Daily has teamed up with the Western Illinois baseball team and will feature a weekly journal with an entry from a Leathernecks player or coach. The site is a great source for college baseball news around the nation and will spotlight the upcoming season for Western with various viewpoints from the players and staff.

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 has been hit 23 times by opponents... Danny Marcuzzo leads the way with five hit-by-pitches John Koszulinski, Anthony Kaskadden and Matt Igara all have been hit four times.

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 hail from Michigan... Tyler Baratono (Allen Park), Garrett Bolt (Wheeler), Jake Moore (Romeo), Dan Owenby (Rochester Hills), Tyler Owings (Saline) and Philip Tolman (Allendale).

STARTER NOTES: Matt Igara has started all 14 games so far for the Leathernecks... Austin Cowen and Danny Marcuzzo have also started every game this season... Ryan Cowhey, John Koszulinski, Tom Lilja have appeared in every game.

ON A TEAR: New Leatherneck shortstop Austin Cowen has hit safely in all but one of the games this season and is hitting .327 for the year... this past weekend Cowen hit .636 and collected seven hits... the Gillette, Wyo. native also extended his hitting streak to nine games.

MONEYBALL: Tom Lilja currently has a .897 OPS (On-Base Percentage + Slugging)... Matt Igara is at .849... Dan Dispensa currently sits at .832 and Austin Cowen is at .800 after his strong weekend... Lilja is also first in runs created with 10.29... Igara is at 9.36 in runs created... Austin Cowen goes into the week with a 9.09 in runs created... Dispensa also leads the team with .491 on-base percentage.

TOTAL BASES WATCH: Matt Igara overtakes the lead in total bases on the team with 29... Tom Lilja has 27 total bases on the year.

LEAGUE LEADERS: Western Illinois leads the Summit League in runs scored (64), hits (116), RBI (53), doubles (25), home runs (8) and total bases (165)... Matt Igara leads the way in the League with 14 hits.

FIGHTING LEATHERNECKS ON THE AIR: Western Illinois baseball games can be heard live on the Internet (www.GoLeathernecks.com) via the Leatherneck Sports Network by clicking on the link for each game on the baseball schedule/results page... radio broadcasts for the games at Southern Utah will not take place due to no phone lines at those facilities. If any other games are not going to be broadcast, GoLeathernecks.com will have that information.

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! EXTRA!: Western Illinois has played two extra-inning games so far this season... that already matches or better the previous three seasons... in 2008 Western played one into extras and that was in the Summit League Tournament... 2009 offered two extra-inning affairs and 2010 also delivered two games with free baseball.

QUALITY STARTS: Dan Russell has delivered two quality starts on the season with 6.0 innings and one earned run in the victory over Georgia State and 7.0 innings and one earned run in the win over Indiana State... Russell also tossed 7.0 strong innings against Kansas State but allowed four earned runs.... Ryan Wachholder also tossed has a quality start with start against Kansas State as he went 6.0 innings and allowed just two earned runs.

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 Koszulinski (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.