MACOMB, Ill. – The Western Illinois baseball program travels to Springfield, Mo. to conclude its spring break trip. The Leathernecks dropped a midweek game against Saint Louis, 8-6, after leading for the majority of the game.

Western Illinois and Missouri State will square off for the 16th time on Friday and the Bears hold a 12-3 lead in the all-time series.

The Matchup
Who: Western Illinois vs. Missouri State
When: Friday, March 18 (6:30 p.m.) • Saturday, March 19 (2 p.m.) • Saturday, March 20 (1 p.m.)
Location: Springfield, Mo.

Coverage
Radio • Rocky Vision (free) Flagship Station 
Live Stats • MissouriStateBears.com (free)

SCOUTING THE BEARS: Missouri State will enter the weekend with a 9-8 record... the Bears split with Southeast Missouri State in its last action... the Bears strung together seven straight wins earlier this season including a victory over Big XII member Oklahoma State... head coach Keith Guttin is in his 28th year at the helm and has 959-607 career record... as a team the Bears are hitting .307... the Bears have drawn 73 walks on the season and stolen 17 bases... Aaron Conway is hitting .413 with eight doubles and nine RBI... Conway is also slugging .587... Brock Chaffin is hitting .356 with two home runs and 11 RBI... Brent Seifert currently has a .329 average with two long balls and 14 RBI... the staff's ERA is at 4.97... Nick Petree has a 2.57 ERA and a 1-0 record in his 21.0 innings of work... Blake Barber is 2-2 with a 3.20 ERA... Grant Gordon has a 4.63 ERA and a 1-2 record on the season... opponents are hitting .278 against Missouri State pitchers.

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.

ON A TEAR: New Leatherneck shortstop Austin Cowen has hit safely in all but one of the games this season (14 of 15) and is hitting .345 for the year... this past weekend Cowen hit .636 and collected seven hits... the Gillette, Wyo. native also extended his hitting streak to 10 games with two hits at Saint Louis on Wednesday... Cowen is hitting .643 with nine hits in the last four games.

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 28... Next best is Southern Utah with 16... Danny Marcuzzo has been hit seven times while John Koszulinski has been hit on five occasions.

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... Dispensa leads the team and Summit League in walks with 12... the sophomore is hitting .311 and is on a nine game hitting streak.

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.

MONEYBALL: Tom Lilja currently has a .863 OPS (On-Base Percentage + Slugging)... Dan Dispensa is at .808... Austin Cowen is first in runs created with 11.31... Lilja is at 10.45 in runs created... Matt Igara is at 10.19 runs created... Dispensa also leads the team with .475 on-base percentage... Cowen is reaching base at a .429 clip.

TOTAL BASES WATCH: Matt Igara has taken the team lead in total bases with 31... Tom Lilja has 28 total bases while Austin Cowen has 24.

LEAGUE LEADERS: Western Illinois leads the Summit League in runs scored (70), hits (128), RBI (59), doubles (27), home runs (8) and total bases (179)... Matt Igara leads the way in the League with 22 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.