The University of Illinois Springfield baseball team will hit the road again after three weekends at home. The Prairie Stars take on the Drury Panthers in a four-game series starting on Friday. Friday's game begins at 5:00 p.m., followed by a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 1:00 p.m., and will finish with a lone Sunday game scheduled for 12:00 p.m.

UIS (19-14, 10-10)

The Prairie Stars are coming off a competitive weekend against Indianapolis, but dropped the series by three games to one. The Stars only gave up 21 runs over the four games, but couldn't get the offensive production they had the week before. Game One and Two of the series were low-scoring affairs with high-quality performances from both pitching staffs. A four-run fourth inning from Indianapolis pushed the Greyhounds to a win in Game One, 4-3, no matter how threatening UIS was on the bases. Game Two was more of the same as both teams struggled to score runs. UIndy jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. With the score 3-0 in the fifth, Mark Kattula hit a 2 RBI double to make it a one-run game. Indianapolis added an insurance run in the top of the seventh to win the game 4-2. In Game Three UIS took complete control with a six-run fourth inning. UIndy made it interesting in the final inning, but the Prairie Stars earned an 8-6 win. In the series finale, UIS found themselves up 4-1 heading into the eighth inning. The Greyhounds rattled off a six-run inning to take a 7-4 lead, where the game would end at as well. 

The Prairie Stars are 5-7 on the road this season. As a team, the Prairie Stars have a .330 batting average and have scored 286 runs. Seven different Stars have an average of .300 or above. Mark Kattula (.419) is second in the GLVC for batting average. UIS' pitching staff currently holds a 7.45 ERA while allowing 212 earned runs. Opponents have a .310 batting average against the UIS pitchers. The Prairie Star defense has a GLVC-leading .976 fielding percentage with 26 errors.

Drury (17-14, 15-5)

The Panthers took three games from McKendree on the road last weekend in their four-game series. With their hot start to the conference season, Drury sits in third place of the GLVC. McKendree took Game One of the series, 15-9, after scoring fifteen unanswered runs when they found themselves down by nine. In Game Two the same thing almost happened again as Drury jumped out to a big lead, but McKendree wouldn't go down without a fight. In the end, the Panthers were able to hold off a furious Bearcat rally and win the game 8-7. In Games Three and Four, early-inning runs led to success for Drury as they earned wins on the day and the overall series win. DU won Game Three 7-5 and Game Four 12-6.

The Panthers are 10-10 at home this year. As a team, Drury has a .287 batting average and have scored 220 runs. Four Panthers have an average of .300 or above. DU's pitching staff currently holds a 5.95 ERA while allowing 168 earned runs. Opponents have a .282 batting average against the Drury pitchers. The Panther defense has a .964 fielding percentage with 40 errors.

How to Follow

Every conference game of the 2024 season will be streamed on GLVCSN and will have live stats that you can follow. Both the stream and live stat link can be found in the Baseball section on the UIS Athletics website.