Baseball | 04.27.2019

No. 7 LUBBOCK CHRISTIAN (32-12, 13-4)
vs. ROGERS STATE (28-14, 12-5)
April 27 – 1 P.M.
Hays Field (Lubbock, Texas)
 
LEADING OFF
After splitting a pair of hard-fought games on Friday, Lubbock Christian and Rogers State will return to the diamond Saturday with each team looking to win the series. The Chaps still hold a one-game lead over the Hillcats in the Heartland Conference standings, but and RSU win Saturday would give the teams identical 13-5 league records and leave the Hillcats with the head-to-head tiebreaker.
 
TEAM LUKE
Saturday's game against RSU is "Team Luke Day" for the Chaparrals, as they look to raise money for the Team Luke Hope For Minds foundation. Luke Siegel, the son of former Texas Tech men's tennis coach Tim Siegel, was in a golf cart accident on July 28, 2015, suffering trauma to the chest and head. Team Luke was started in the Lubbock area to support the Siegel family both emotionally and financially. In 2018, Team Luke joined forces with Hope4Minds, another nonprofit organization founded after a brain injury to an 11-year-old boy named JD in 2008. The goal of the combined team is to help families pay for items not covered or partially covered by insurance, providing advocacy and education, and building support communities. LCU will be donating all money from ticket sales to the foundation. Team Luke t-shirts will also be for sale, as will Tim's book, with the money raised going to the foundation.
 
 
STARTING PITCHING MATCHUP
LCU – Ricky Contreras gets the nod for the Chaps, making just his fifth appearance of the year. Contreras, a four-year starter for LCU, has a 1.13 earned run average in 24.0 innings pitched this season. He has given up just three runs – all of them earned – and held opponents to a .212 batting average with 18 strikeouts. His last outing came on the road against Oklahoma Christian, when he went 5.0 innings, allowing two runs on five hits with one walk and three strikeouts. Contreras is also closing in on a couple of career milestones. He needs three more strikeouts to reach 250 for his collegiate career and is 7.1 innings short of 300 at Lubbock Christian.
 
RSU – The Hillcats will call on Preston Whitten, who is making his seventh start and ninth appearance this season. Whitten is a right-hander from Wagoner, Oklahoma, with a 4.29 earned run average in 35.2 innings on the mound. He has given up 38 hits and 18 walks in that time will striking out 20 batters. The senior has gone at least 6.0 innings in each of his last three appearances, including a season-high 6.1 against Newman last weekend. In that matchup with the Jets, Whitten gave up three runs on eight hits with four walks and four strikeouts.
 
 
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
4.06 | Rogers State's staff ERA in conference games is the third best in the Heartland and one 100^th of a point better than Lubbock Christian's
25 | With a walk in game one and a hit in game two of Friday's doubleheader, catcher Andrew Pratt has now reached base in 25 straight games
.174 | The Hillcats struggled to drive in runs in the first two games of the series, hitting .174 with runners in scoring position
115 | All four of the Chaps' runs on Friday were scored with two outs, giving them 115 two-out RBI on the year
25 | Andres Negron drove in three of the four runs LCU scored in the first two games, giving him 25 RBI this year, which is tied with his total from last season
.462 | Hill Alexander added two hits on Friday and now has a batting average of .462 in league games
.133 | LCU had just two hits in 15 chances with runners in scoring position in the first two games of the series