Redhawks bring the boomsticks to Marshall

Southeast Missouri State's Gunnar Doyle, right, leaps to celebrate with Gavin Baldwin after hitting a home run against Toledo on Sunday, March 3, at Capaha Field.

Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com

West Virginia, mountain momma.

Take SEMO home, country road.

The Southeast Missouri State baseball team travels to Marshall for a weekend series at 5 p.m., Friday, 2 p.m., Saturday, and noon Sunday, March 8-10.

It will be the first-ever matchup between the Redhawks (6-8) and Thundering Herd (4-8), a member of the Sun Belt Conference. The Redhawks will have the honor of being the third visiting team to play on the newly built Jack Cook Field in Huntington, West Virginia.

The Redhawks enter the series tied with Morehead State for the Ohio Valley Conference lead in home runs with 23. They are also fourth in the OVC in batting average (.259), runs (92) and RBI (89).

While the Redhawks live by the homer, they are also dying by the homer, as they lead the OVC in strikeouts, a category nobody wants to be on top of. They also lead in hit-by-pitches with 30, for what it's worth.

The long ball has been the calling card of the SEMO offense, especially this past week. The Redhawks hit three grand slams, starting with Bryce Cannon on Tuesday, March 5, against Missouri. Nolan Ackerman and Ty Stauss each hit a grand slam during Saturday’s doubleheader against Toledo, in which SEMO swept by a combined score of 25-3.

Cannon went 5-for-15 with a home run and 8 RBI during the four-game series last weekend against Toledo. The junior from Santa Rosa Junior College is batting .286 with four home runs and a team-leading 18 RBI in 13 games.

“I’m just trying to get something elevated,” Cannon said of his approach at the plate. “I’m just trying to play for the guy next to me and do whatever I can to help my team win.”

Southeast Missouri State outfielder Michael Mugan during Sunday's game against Toledo at Capaha Field.

Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com

Outfielder Michael Mugan has also reached base safely in the last nine games and leads the team with a .345 batting average. Mugan and Cannon are two players who are in their first year of Division I baseball after playing in junior college and have made the seamless adjustment against pitching at this level similar to Josh Cameron did last year.

"I think here, every pitcher on the staff has a pitch to get you out," Mugan said. "There's not really a whole lot of pitchers in Division I baseball who don't have a secondary pitch that they can throw when they want. There's always a growth period that I think we all go through and I think I went through that in the fall."

SEMO shortstop Ben Palmer has reached base safely in every game this season and is third on the team in on-base percentage (.426). He also leads the Redhawks with five home runs, tying a career-high from 2022.

“I like consistency in the box, not chasing pitches and just keeping my swing together,” Palmer said. “I worked hard on this fall and over the winter and seeing it pay off right now.”

Pitching still leaves much to be desired, but the same could be said about the rest of the OVC. Lindenwood, led by Saxony Lutheran alum Eli Brown, stands out as the only team in the conference to have a collective ERA below 5.00.

The Redhawks are among the league's best with a 9.7 strikeout rate and Haden Dow was recently selected as the Ohio Valley Conference Pitcher of the Week for shutting down Toledo last weekend.

After the weekend series, the Redhawks will travel to Evansville on Wednesday, March 13, before returning home for a weekend series against Western Kentucky to wrap up the non-conference weekend series slate.