- Live Stats: Friday | Saturday, Game 1 | Saturday, Game 2- Live Audio (Saturday Only) STEPHENVILLE – The Tarleton State Texan baseball team will host the Angelo State Rams in a crucial three-game Lone Star Conference series, set to begin this Friday, April 11 at Cecil Ballow Baseball Complex in Stephenville.
The Texans are coming off a 5-4 non-conference win over Arlington Baptist on Tuesday, but will be looking to snap a four-game losing streak in conference contests dating back to a loss at Texas A&M-Kingsville on March 30.
Tarleton enters the weekend 18-16 overall and 8-13 in LSC contests – one game back of Eastern New Mexico (9-14) for fourth-place in the league standings. The top four teams at the end of the regular season will advance to the LSC Championship Tournament that will be held May 8-10 at the site of the regular-season champion.
The Rams come into Stephenville with an overall record of 23-15 and currently third in the LSC standings at 12-11. ASU split a pair of non-conference games against McMurry in San Angelo on Tuesday and went 2-1 against Cameron in league-play last weekend.
Both teams are hitting .282 on the season, which ranks fourth in the LSC, but ASU tops the Texans in pitching with a 2.88 earned run average. Tarleton, meanwhile, heads into the series with 3.74 ERA, but leads the conference and ranks sixth in the nation with a .974 fielding percentage.
Jared Musgrove leads the Texans in hitting with a clip of .437 on the season. He has 31 hits in 71 at-bats with four doubles and one triple.
Rustin Thomas and
Alvaro Moreno lead the team with 39 hits each, but Thomas also leads the team with nine doubles and six home runs.
Kevin Meredith and
Noel Nevarez lead the squad with 20 runs batted in on the year.
Matt Herrick leads the pitching staff with a 1.59 ERA, while
Colton Burleson leads all starters with an ERA of 3.02.
Jacob French leads the team with 36 strikeouts, but
Robert Baker is right behind him with 35 K's on the year.
ASU won the series 3-1 in San Angelo earlier this season, but the two teams split a four-game set the last time the Rams visited Stephenville back in 2012.
Live stats will be provided for all three games this weekend, while Saturday's contest can be heard live via radio broadcast at 90.5 FM in Stephenville. A live webcast of the radio broadcast can be found on the web by going to
www.ktrl.fm.
Friday's contest will be a nine-inning game set to begin at 3 p.m., with Saturday's doubleheader scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.