LITTLE ROCK – UALR baseball (15-30, 11-15) will play its final home game of the season against rival Central Arkansas (24-21, 14-13) at Gary Hogan Field on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
SCOUTING CENTRAL ARKANSAS
UCA comes into Tuesday's game with losses in six of its last seven games. The Bears' skid started with three losses at Incarnate Word at the first of May. UCA's woes continued at home against Arkansas State before losing two of three to Southeastern Louisiana.
Wesley Hoover leads the Bears with a .362 batting average and three triples in 141 at-bats. Tyler Langley leads Central Arkansas with 54 hits, 37 runs, 13 doubles, five homeruns, 28 RBIs and a .483 slugging percentage while hitting .310 for the year.
The Bears will throw right-hander Riley Echols on Tuesday night. Echols is 3-3 for the year with 8 starts in 11 appearances. In 46.1 innings pitched, Echols has an ERA of 3.69 and has the third-most strikeouts with 34. Batters are hitting .237 for the year against him, the third-lowest on the UCA pitching staff.
SERIES AGAINST CENTRAL ARKANSAS
The Trojans lead the overall series 37-30-1, but took a loss to the Bears earlier this season in Conway.
ON THE MOUND FOR THE TROJANS
UALR will toss right-hander Stephen Chandler on Tuesday. Chandler is 0-2 for the season with two starts and 13 appearances. In his last start at Louisiana Tech, Chandler pitched a career-high six innings and gave up just two runs on five hits.
TROJANS ACE
Sophomore Cory Malcom continues his great year on the mound as he earned his fifth win of the season on Saturday against ULM. Malcom has been consistent with the placement of his pitches as he has only allowed 1.87 walks per nine innings this season, 118th-best in the nation. At 82 innings pitched for the season, Malcom has thrown the sixth-most innings in the Sun Belt this season.
CONFERENCE WINS
UALR successfully matched last year's conference wins total of 11 with its victory against ULM on Saturday afternoon. A three-game sweep of Arkansas State this weekend would give UALR 14 conference wins for the year, the most since 2000 when the Trojans picked up 16.
FAREWELL SENIORS!
Seniors Cameron Allen, Dyllon Brownmiller, Stephen Chandler, Brandon Gil, Drew Merten, Tanner Rockwell, Petr Sila, Justin Steelmon and Sam Vogel will play at Gary Hogan Field for the final time on Tuesday against Central Arkansas. The nine seniors were honored prior to the series finale with ULM on Sunday.
OVER .320
Three Trojans are hitting over the .320 mark this season, including Ryan Scott, Kyle Kirk and Tanner Rockwell. After 45 games in 2014, only two UALR players were hitting above the .300 mark which included Rockwell at .309.
After hitting just .200 at the same point of the season last year, Scott is tied for the highest batting average by a Trojan this season at .331. Scott is tied for the conference lead with 19 doubles (23rd in the nation) and 0.42 doubles per game (16th in the nation). Earlier this year, Scott had a hitting streak of 17 games. With 17 multiple-hit games this year, Scott is tied for the team high.
Tanner Rockwell has been a pivotal part of UALR's offense this season with a .331 batting average. In Sun Belt play, Rockwell leads the conference with a .413 batting average and 32 RBIs. In those games, Rockwell has the second-most hits with 43, second-most total bases with 63 and fourth-most doubles with 11. Rockwell earned SBC Player of the Week honors for the first time after going 5 for 5 in the second game of UALR's series with Texas State, tying the UALR record for hits in a single game. Rockwell had a career-high four RBIs on two occasions this season against Georgia State and Louisiana. As the leadoff batter, Rockwell is hitting .481 against the opposition, the highest average for a UALR player. With runners in scoring position, Rockwell leads the team with a .365 average.
Kyle Kirk has had no trouble in his first season as a Trojan as he has hit .327 for the year. Kirk is tied for the team high for multi-hit games this season with 17. Earlier this season, Kirk amassed a reached-base streak of 18 games, the longest by a UALR player this year. The lefty has been a force against right-handed pitchers with a .364 average, the best by a Trojan player this season. With two outs, Kirk is hitting a team-high .394.
CATCH 'EM IF YOU CAN
Senior catcher Drew Merten has caught 23 baserunners stealing this season, the most in the Sun Belt conference.
NEXT TIME OUT
After finishing its final home game of the season on Tuesday night, UALR will play its final Sun Belt series of the season at Arkansas State beginning on Thursday.
Major post-season implications will play a factor this weekend as the Trojans try to make it into the eight-team Sun Belt Conference Tournament field. UALR is currently in ninth-place and a half-game behind ULM.
The Trojans can automatically make the tournament with a sweep of Arkansas State. With two wins, UALR would also need ULM to lose two games to Louisiana or need Texas State lto ose two games to UT Arlington or a Texas State sweep of the Mavericks. With one win, the Trojans would need sweeps of ULM and Texas State.
