SEARCY – Harding baseball returns to Great American Conference action Friday and Saturday against East Central at Jerry Moore Field. The teams play a single game Friday at 2 p.m. and a doubleheader Saturday at noon.

Harding (10-4, 3-3) is sixth in the GAC standings and is coming off a 3-2 victory Wednesday over Arkansas-Fort Smith in Searcy. The Bisons made the most of their four hits in the game. Senior Kyle Atkins drove in the game-winning run with a double in the bottom of the eighth. Senior Gabe Fyock had his fifth multi-hit game and leads the team with a .405 batting average.

 The Bisons are seventh in the 11-team GAC in batting average at .285. Harding has an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of .745, just below the conference average of .783.

Harding's pitching staff has a team ERA of 3.56, good for third in the conference. The Bisons will send seniors Hayden Shirley (4-0, 2.14) and Lucas Waddell (1-1, 6.87) and junior Cameron Walker (0-1, 4.97) to the mound as starting pitchers in the series. Shirley ranks fifth in the GAC in ERA and second in opponents batting average (.169).

East Central (5-14, 1-8) has lost its last seven games entering the weekend series and finds itself in 10th place in the GAC standings. The Tigers are ninth in the conference with a .264 team batting average and have a .708 team OPS. East Central is also ninth in the conference with a 5.91 team ERA.

East Central won two of the three games last season in GAC play in Searcy.