COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- The Golden Eagles of Tennessee Tech will look to climb in conference rankings this weekend with a three-game series against the Eagles of Morehead State in Kentucky this weekend. With a 65-36 lead on the lifetime series, Tech hopes to increase the gap between wins and losses over the Eagles.
Tech will riding the momentum of a bottom of the ninth, walk-off victory into this weekend's series as they recently knocked off a non-conference, Atlantic Sun opponent in Belmont earlier this week courtesy of a solo-shot by Ben Burgess to clinch the 9-8 win under the lights in Bush Stadium.
Their 5-4 OVC stand (16-19 overall) puts Tech in fourth place in the conference currently, while Morehead's 1-6 mark (5-29 overall) leaves them ranked ninth in Ohio Valley Conference standings.
While Burgess is currently batting .257 with a 36-140 effort at the plate, his main contributions have typically come behind the dish when he anchors in the infield as Tech's starting catcher.
Offensively, the Golden Eagles have six men batting at a .300 or better mark, and are still led by sophomore Evan Frazier with a .337 (31-92) in 26 appearances. Chad Hayes has recently upped his average to a .336 following the past few contests, going 42-125 on the season in 35 games played. Zach Stephens and Chad Oberacker continue to bring in the runs for Tech, and have batted in 33 apiece in fuel Tech's scoring.
MSU has lost their last 10 games and will be looking to snap the streak this weekend, relying mainly on Taylor Davis and Andrew Deeds for offensive fuel. Davis is hitting at a .374 mark on the year and slugging a monumental .722; he also leads the team in RBI with 32. Deeds follows closely with a .362 average and has brought in 27 runs for the Eagles.
The Golden Eagles will look to a rotation of Tristan Archer, Matt Shepherd and Nick Price to head off Davis, Deeds and the rest of the Morehead line-up.
Archer will pitch game one on Friday at 12 p.m. It will be his ninth start of the season and 11th appearance overall. With a 4-4 record so far, Archer leads Tech with 52.2 innings pitched and has 41 Ks on the season. Shepherd will follow in game two of Friday's twinbill, leading the Golden Eagles with an ERA of 3.81 in 49.2 innings of work, and also in strikeouts with 44. He'll be looking to even out his 2-3 record on the season with his 12th overall appearance.
After a dominant performance last weekend in game three against EIU, Price has earned the start in game three of this weekend's series. Price is 3-2 on the season and has an ERA of 4.85 with 27 strikeouts to boast.
The rotation for the Eagles has yet to be determined.
Fans who won't be able to make it out to Kentucky for the series can follow the LiveStats here.
