SCOUTING THE THUNDERBIRDS: Southern Utah will enter the series with Western Illinois with a 16-21 record and a 5-7 mark within The Summit League... in its last action within the league the Thunderbirds dropped three of four with South Dakota State... head coach David Eldredge (BYU, 1984) is in his eighth season at the helm... as a team SUU is hitting .296... Bo Cuthbertson is leading the Summit League with a .439 batting average, also has four home runs on the season and 34 RBI... Mitchel Kauweloa is at .361 while Taylor Shaw is hitting .337 with 22 RBI... Chris Chung is 5-4 with a 3.68 ERA and 40 K's... James Crockett is 4-5 with a 5.26 ERA and a team best 71 K's... Chase Rezac is 3-4 with a 6.41 ERA... Justin Neubauer is 1-2 with a 3.69 ERA.... Southern Utah and Western Illinois have two common opponents so far this season... the Thunderbirds lost to Iowa on Feb. 28th 8-3 and took one from South Dakota State... SUU has stolen 63 bases this season... they have a .410 slugging percentage and a .382 on-base percentage.

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 current season for Western with various viewpoints from the players and staff.

LAST FIVE GAMES: Western Illinois is hitting .232 in the last five games (1-4) with a .409 slugging percentage and a .332 on-base percentage... the Leathernecks crushed eight home runs and drove in 24 RBI in that time frame... Danny Marcuzzo is hitting .333 and had three consecutive games with a home run... Marcuzzo also has collected 15 total bases... the team ERA is 5.62.

DYNAMIC DUO: Tom Lilja and Dan Russell have been near the top of the Summit League in several categories nearly the entire season... Lilja is in second place in slugging percentage (.513) after an impressive weekend... second in runs scored (32)... second in RBI (33)... leads the league in home runs (10) and is two shy of matching the single-season record (12) done four times, most recently in 2002 by Joe Rooney... Rooney also is the career home run leader for Western Illinois with 28 from 2001-03... Lilja is also second in total bases with 81... Dan Russell is third in ERA at 3.41, second in opponents batting average (.235)... has tossed the most innings (66.0)... fourth in strikeouts (51 and leads the lead with 24 backwards K's.

STERLING PERFORMANCES: Zach Sterling has been impressive this season for the Purple Army... the junior has four quality starts in his seven starts this season... he has the second best ERA in the league at 2.86... opponents have not been able to figure the Lima, Ohio native out as they are hitting just .223 against him... he has the fifth most strikeouts despite only making seven starts this season... in his last star Sterling went 8.0 innings against Oakland and record nine punch outs in the winning effort... a Leatherneck has not recorded double digit K's since 2009 when Mark Dibernardo (10) did it against North Dakota State on May 12.

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 26... the sophomore is hitting .301 and had a 10-game hitting streak earlier this season... Dispensa is also second on the team in OBP at .419.

1-2 PUNCH: The top of the Leatherneck rotation continues to be anchored down by Dan Russell and Zach Sterling... The two have combined for nine quality starts (6 IP and fewer than 3 earned runs)... Russell is 4-4 with a 3.41 ERA and 51 K's... Sterling is 4-2 and has a 2.86 ERA with five quality starts this season.

SHUTOUT: The Purple & Gold collected its second shutout of the season on April 23 at Oakland as Zach Sterling held the Golden Grizzlies scoreless and Chris Fuchs tossed the final inning to secure the victory...  The other occurred when Western Illinois blanked eastern Illinois on Tuesday, 4-0... the last time the Leathernecks had previously recorded a shutout prior this season was on March 14, 2009 against Medaille College.

STARTER NOTES: Matt Igara and Austin Cowen have started all 40 games this season for the Leathernecks... John Koszulinski and Tom Lilja have appeared in every game.

MONEYBALL: Matt Igara leads the team with .853 OPS (on-base + slugging) and is also responsible for 30.55 runs created according to the runs created category... Tom Lilja is at .848 in OPS.

TOTAL BASES WATCH: Tom Lilja is second in the league with 81 total bases after the weekend... Matt Igara is second with 75 total bases...  as a team the Purple & Gold is third in the Summit with 503 bases.

SOS: The Leathernecks strength of schedule rating is currently at 114 according to Boyd's World... The team's best win of the season came over Georgia State... the Panthers have an RPI of 106 and are currently 29-13.

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 Oakland and 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.

ANOTHER NEWCOMER: Center fielder Matt Igara joined the Leathernecks after a very successful stint at Heartland C.C... Igara has not missed a beat since joining the Division I ranks... he has 54 hits on the season which is second in the Summit League and a .327 average... had an 11-game hitting streak... has collected 21 multi-hit games... named Summit League Male Athlete of month for March.

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.

SOLO SHOTS: Western Illinois hit eight home runs this past week... Danny Marcuzzo smacked three of those while Tom Lilja was responsible for two of them... of the eight long balls during the week, six of them were solo... the Leathernecks have a league best 26 home runs but 16 of those have been with the bases empty.

BY THE NUMBERS: The Leathernecks are currently ranked eighth in The Summit League in team batting average (.262)... third in slugging percentage (.371) and fifth in on-base percentage (.359)... Western Illinois is in third in runs scored (206), third in hits (355), third in RBI (182), fourth in doubles (66), first in home runs (26), third in total bases (503), and first in sacrifice bunts (38).

EXTRA BASES: Western Illinois hitters have combined for 101 multiple-hit games this season... Matt Igara has 21 games with two or more hits while Austin Cowen (10), Dan Dispensa (12), Tom Lilja (10), Bryan Jordan (10), Ryan Cowhey (7), Danny Marcuzzo (8), John Koszulinski (11) and Chris Giglio (3) each have recorded one or more multi-hit games... Dispensa and Kaskadden are the only Leathernecks to have recorded four hits this season... Igara has collected four three-hit games on the season while Lilja (3), Cowen (1), Dispensa (3), Cowhey (1) and Giglio (3) have all recorded three hit games... the team has also combined for 40 multi-RBI games from individual players... Tom Lilja has recorded seven multi-RBI games including one four-RBI performance... Austin Cowen has collected six similar games as well... John Koszulinski has a five-RBI game as well... five players have had hitting streaks of 10 or more games this season... Lilja had a 13-game hitting streak... Marcuzzo just ended a 12-game hitting streak... Igara had an 11-game streak... Dispensa and Cowen both had 10-game streaks previously this season... Tyler Baratono and Lilja has the longest current streak with 3 games.