SEARCY – Harding baseball will make its last gasp effort to qualify for the Great American Conference Tournament this weekend as it hosts Southwestern Oklahoma State for a three-game series at Jerry Moore Field.
The series begins Saturday with a noon doubleheader and concludes Sunday with a single game at 1 p.m. Harding's Senior Day activities will take place prior to Sunday's game.
Harding enters the series with a 24-22 overall record and a 7-14 mark in the GAC. The Bisons are eighth in the conference standings, and only the top six teams qualify for the tournament. For Harding to earn a spot, the Bisons must sweep their series against Southwestern Oklahoma, have Henderson State sweep its series against Ouachita Baptist, and have East Central lose at least two games in its series at Southeastern Oklahoma.
Harding is coming off an outing Tuesday where it tied its season-high offensive output. The Bisons scored 12 runs at Arkansas Tech but gave up a school-record seven home runs and fell 22-12 in the highest-scoring game this season by GAC teams.
The top hitters for Harding during conference games this season have been sophomore
Matt Calhoun, junior
Kyle Atkins, and junior
Billy Ninemire. Calhoun leads the team in conference games with a .311 batting average and 14 RBI. Atkins is hitting .304 with a team-high 24 hits, and Ninemire is batting .301 with 13 runs scored and nine doubles.
Harding's rotation for the weekend series will be the same it has been all season. Junior right-hander
Lucas Waddell will make the start in the first game Saturday. He is 6-3 with a 3.09 ERA and will be going for his 22nd career win, which would tie the Harding school record of Matt Walters (2000-03).
Junior
Hayden Shirley (3-5, 3.23) will pitch the second game of the doubleheader. He has limited hitters to a .188 average, second-lowest in the GAC. Game three starter will be
Logan Holthaus (2-4, 4.47).
Southwestern Oklahoma enters the series 24-17 overall and 11-10 in conference play. The Bulldogs have lost three straight, including the final two games of a GAC home series last weekend against Arkansas-Monticello. SWOSU is fourth in the conference standings and needs one win or an East Central loss to clinch its GAC Tournament berth.
The Bulldogs are fourth in the conference with a .288 team batting average, fifth in ERA at 4.68, and fifth in fielding percentage (.962).
SWOSU's top hitter is senior Jeremy Soliday, who has a .338 average and a team-best 12 doubles. Junior left-hander Cole Stephens is the Bulldogs' top starting pitcher at 5-2 with a 3.81 ERA.
Harding holds a 5-3 advantage in the all-time series against Southwestern Oklahoma. The last time the teams met, Harding won three games in a four-game series in Searcy in 2000.
