Baseball Game Center: Games 48-50 at #10 Mo State

BradleyBraves.com Baseball 5/13/2015 3:15:00 PM

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BRADLEY BRAVES (32-15, 10-8 MVC at #10 MISSOURI STATE BEARS (38-10, 15-3 MVC)
May 14-16, 2015 | Springfield, Mo. | Hammons Field (8,000)

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Tickets: $5 adults, $2 children

Video: Bears All-Access (subscription required, Thursday and Friday only) | VIDEO PORTAL

Audio: KBFL AM 1060 Springfield, Mo. | LISTEN LIVE

Stats: Powered by StatBroadcast | CLICK HERE FOR MVC SCOREBOARD

PROJECTED STARTERS
Thursday, May 14 | 6:35 p.m.
Bradley: Elliot Ashbeck, Jr., RHP, 10-3, 3.36 ERA, 80.1 IP, 67 K, 20 BB
Missouri State: Jon Harris, Jr., RHP, 6-1, 2.08 ERA, 82.1 IP, 99 K, 29 BB

Friday, May 15 | 6:35 p.m.
Bradley: Brent Stong, Jr., LHP, 5-4, 4.89 ERA, 70.0 IP, 45 K, 19 BB
Missouri State: Matt Hall, Jr., LHP, 8-2, 2.59 ERA, 90.1 IP, 124 K, 33 BB

Saturday, May 16 | 2:05 p.m.
Bradley: TBA
Missouri State: Jordan Knutson, So., LHP, 3-1, 3.02 ERA, 62.2 IP, 44 K, 26 BB

STRIVE FOR FIVE
Bradley Baseball will strive for its fifth Missouri Valley Conference series win of the season when the Braves visit Missouri Valley Conference leader Missouri State for the final three games of the regular season ... Bradley, which has MVC series wins against Southern Illinois, Wichita State, Evansville and Indiana State (all 2-games-to-1), has not won five league series in the same year since 2006 ... Already with their first 30-win season since 2007, the Braves can secure a winning conference record for just the second (2007, 13-11) time since 1993 by winning one game against the Bears ... Bradley enters Thursday's series opener after consecutive losses against Illinois State and the Braves will be trying to avoid their first 3-game losing streak of the season.

SERIES NOTES
Missouri State leads 56-34
This week's series at Missouri State will represent games 91, 92 and 93 in the all-time series between the Bears and Braves, which dates to a non-conference, neutral site game March 23, 1982 in Albuquerque, N.M. (Missouri State won 7-3) ... The Bears own a 56-34 lead in the all-time series, including a 30-12 home record against Bradley ... Missouri State has won nine consecutive regular-season home games against the Braves, though Bradley did split a pair of games against the host Bears during the 2012 Missouri Valley Conference Baseball Championship at Hammons Field ... Bradley has not won a series in Springfield since sweeping a doubleheader April 3, 1993 in a weather-shortened series (the Braves also split a doubleheader April 5, 2003 in another weather-shortened series at Missouri State).

PLUS 17
Bradley enters the final regular-season series at Missouri State 17 games over .500 and the Braves peaked at plus 19 by winning the first two games of the April 24-26 series against Evansville ... At 29-10 overall following the April 25 win against Evansville, the Braves reached the fifth-best high-water mark during a season in the program's 115-year history ... Bradley has not been 20 games over .500 since the 1996 season ... Since getting to +19, however, Bradley is just 3-5.

BRAKE CHECK
Bradley enters Thursday's series opener at Missouri State suffering from their fifth 2-game losing streak of the season ... The Braves have yet to lose a third straight game this season ... Bradley has not played an entire season without losing three consecutive games since 1968, a 15-8 campaign that ended with the program's last Missouri Valley Conference championship and NCAA Regionals appearance.

WINNING AWAY FROM HOME
As the final week of the regular-season continues, Bradley is one of five teams among the the nation's top 100 RPI with more than 20 wins away from home ... Bradley, which checks in at No. 23 in the RPI, ranks fifth nationally with 21 wins away from home ... At 13-8 in true road games, Bradley is positioned to finish at least .500 on its opponents' home fields for the third time in four years ... Since the start of the 2012 season, Bradley is 49-47 in true road games ... Bradley is one of three teams to win at RPI No. 1 Dallas Baptist (20-3) this season and the Braves also own a victory at RPI No. 21 Iowa, which is 14-3 overall at home this year.

IMPROVING TREND
With three regular-season games remaining and a 32-15 record to date, the Braves have long ago secured their first winning season since 2007 (32-21) ... The 2015 campaign is the most recent of Bradley's 15 all-time 30-win campaigns ... Bradley has not won more than 32 games since 1996 (40-22) ... The 32 wins to date equal the 10th-best single-season victories total in program history ... This 2015 season takes a recent trend under seventh-year head coach Elvis Dominguez to new heights ... Bradley now has improved its record from one season to the next in five of the last six years ... Bradley jumped from 17-32 (.347) in 2013 to 24-27 (.471) last season ... The current 8-win improvement is the program's best year-to-year improvement since a 10-win jump from 30-27 in 1995 to 40-22 in 1996 ... The 15-win jump in two seasons equals the best two-year improvement in program history (19-7-2 in 1983 to 34-25 in 1985; and 9-11 in 1954 to 24-8 in 1956).

FACING LEAGUE LEADERS
Not only has Bradley built its best record to date in decades, but the Braves have succeeded against tough competition ... As the regular season winds down this week, eight of Bradley's 14 NCAA Division I non-conference opponents currently sit among the top three in their respective league standings, including five conference leaders ... Bradley has played 12 of those 14 teams away from home ... Bradley is 5-6 against teams that reside at the top of their respective league standings ... The combination of facing strong competition away from home has helped lift Bradley to No. 23 in the RPI and 28 in the Nolan Power Index.

MORE BITES FROM THE INJURY BUG
Bradley's season is even more impressive when you consider the Braves already have missed 47 player games due to injury from its opening-day starting lineup ... The injury bug bit during the opening game and has not let up ... Starting catcher Drew Carlile strained an oblique late in the season opener and missed the next 12 games, starting center fielder Isaac Smith strained a hamstring in the season's second game and missed three games as a result, starting third baseman Spencer Gaa also strained a hamstring in week 2 and has finished only 21 games this season due to multiple hamstring injuries affecting both legs and starting second baseman Chris Godinez also injured a hamstring while rounding the bases on a leadoff home run March 18, missing three games ... Smith did not play April 29 at Milwaukee due to illness, while Godinez re-injured the hamstring in the sixth inning at Milwaukee and has not played the last six games at Indiana State nor versus Illinois State ... Shortstop Tyler Leffler is the only Brave to appear in all 47 games to date this season ... In addition to the field players, two veteran pitchers with 63 combined appearances - Peter Resnick (RHP) and Eric Scheuermann (RHP) - started the season on the shelf and are not expected to toe the rubber this year ... Junior right-hander Steve Adkins, who is 6-2 with a 2.87 ERA, has missed three weekend starts this season, including each of the last two weekends at Indiana State and versus Illinois State.

EIGHT SHUTOUTS EQUAL SCHOOL RECORD
Five Bradley pitchers combined on the team's eighth shutout of the season April 22 against Western Illinois (4-0) ... The eight shutouts equal the 2006 Braves for the most in a single season in the program's 115-year history ... The 2006 Braves got their eighth shutout in the season's 56th game, a 1-0 win against Creighton in the third round of the MVC Tournament ... Among Bradley's shutout highlights in 2015, the Braves blanked McNeese State for an entire 3-game series Feb. 20-22, eating up 27.0 innings in what became a school-record 34.1 consecutive scoreless innings for the staff ... While Bradley (8) and Missouri State (7) lead The Valley and have combined for 15 shutouts, the league's other six teams have combined for just 13 shutouts.

FIGHTING CHILDHOOD CANCER
While Bradley continues to play through its best season in nearly two decades, the Braves also are excelling in their efforts to fight childhood cancer ... Bradley has joined a college baseball movement by partnering with the Vs. Cancer Foundation to raise both funds and awareness in the fight against childhood cancer ... Vs. Cancer was founded by former University of North Carolina baseball player Chase Jones, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor during his collegiate playing career ... Junior pitcher Steve Adkins has spearheaded Bradley's efforts to raise funds for Vs. Cancer, with the proceeds to be shared equally with both the foundation and Children's Hospital of Illinois, and the Braves have generated more than $11,000 in online donations ... Following the March 28 game versus Southern Illinois, team members shaved their heads on the Dozer Park concourse to help raise awareness for the Vs. Cancer Foundation ... For more information, visit http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=25967&SPID=1506&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=209983235.

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