12th-ranked Mules head to Oklahoma for three-game set with Northeastern State

First Pitch
• The 12th-ranked Central Missouri Mules head to Tahlequah, Oklahoma to take on Northeastern State in a three-game series.
• The series gets underway on Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. Saturday's game is set for 2 p.m. and Sunday's series finale will start at noon.
• Friday's game will not have live stats.
• Central Missouri was picked to finish third in the MIAA's Preseason Coaches' poll.
• The Mules were 30-22 a season ago and finished in third place in the MIAA with a 23-13 conference mark. It was the 22nd consecutive season with at least 30 wins for UCM.

On the air
• All of this season's home games and select road games can be heard live on 1450 KOKO and warrensburgradio.com.
• Bob Jackson and Ricky Rivera will be on the call with the Lotspeich Automotive Dugout Show beginning 25 minutes prior to first pitch.

The Series
• The Mules lead the all-time series with Northeastern State 18-7, including a 4-0 mark under Kyle Crookes.
• UCM swept a four-game series with the RiverHawks last year in Warrensburg. The Mules won by scores of 7-3, 15-10, 5-4 and 9-6.
• The Mules went 2-2 in their last trip to Tahlequah during the 2014 season.

Northeastern State
• Northeastern State enters the series at 21-17 overall and 15-13 in MIAA play after rallying for a 10-9 walk-off win over Central Oklahoma on Wednesday.
• The RiverHawks are 12-4 at home this season.
• Northeastern State is led by first-year head coach Jake Hendrick.
• NSU is hitting .290 as a team with 72 doubles, six triples, 46 homers and 275 RBI.
• Eric Kirkpatrick leads the team in hitting with a .399 average to go along with a team-best 14 doubles and 48 RBI. He is second on the squad with nine home runs.
• Justin Burgess bats .342 with eight doubles, seven homers and 21 driven in.
• Cody Begovich leads the team with 13 home runs and is second with 46 RBI to go along with a .261 average.
• Three players are hitting .326 or better, four have at least six home runs and nine players have at least 18 RBI. Three players have at least 30 runs driven in.
• The Northeastern State pitching staff has a 6.25 ERA in 38 games and 324.0 innings pitched. The staff has walked 177 and struck out 275 during that span. Opponents are hitting .305 against NSU.
• Zach Parish leads the RiverHawk pitching staff with a 5-2 record and a 3.90 ERA in 13 appearances and 10 starts. He's struck out 75 batters in 62.1 innings, but has allowed nine home runs.
• Jeremy Mansur is 1-3 with a 7.91 ERA in seven starts and nine total appearances.
• Thomas Murray is 1-4 with a 5.92 ERA in 17 appearances (14 relief) and leads the team with six saves.
• The RiverHawks have a .958 team fielding percentage. They've committed 60 errors and have turned 34 double plays on the year.

The Mules
• Central Missouri enters the series at 26-10 overall and 24-5 in MIAA play after beating Southwest Baptist on Tuesday afternoon.
• The Mules are hitting .292 as a team with 58 doubles, 17 triples, 42 home runs and 227 RBI.
• Jake Alexander leads the team with a .373 batting average with 10 doubles, a triple, three home runs and 26 RBI. He has a .449 on-base percentage.
• Derek Cornell is hitting .341 with 12 extra-base hits, including four home runs and has 27 RBI.
• Bennett Oliver leads the team in home runs with 13 and is second on the team with 29 RBI, while hitting .321.
• Dylan Farrell is hitting .325 with seven doubles, a triple and seven home runs and a team-leading 31 RBI.
• Ten Mules have double figure RBI on the season.
• The pitching staff has a 3.74 team ERA through 36 games and 317.1 innings pitched. The staff has 317 strikeouts and 123 walks during that span.
• Ethan Westphal is 6-1 with a staff-leading 2.26 ERA in nine appearances and eight starts. He is second on the team with 63 strikeouts in 55.2 innings pitched and is holding opponents to a .184 batting average.
• Carlos D'Armas is 2-1 with a 4.19 ERA in 10 starts. He leads the team with 64 strikeouts in 53.2 innings pitched. Opponents are batting .249 against him.
• Tyler House is 5-2 with a 4.42 ERA in 10 starts. He's struck out 46 batters in 53.0 innings pitched and is holding opponents to a .252 batting average.
• Andy Muehlberger is 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA and two saves in 10 relief appearances. He has eight strikeouts in 8.1 innings pitched and has allowed three hits.
• Ross Juliana is 2-1 with a 2.12 ERA and two saves in 10 relief outings. He's struck out 12 in 17 innings pitched.
• Grant Gavin leads the team with seven saves to go along with a 3-2 record and a 3.20 ERA in 17 relief appearances. He has struck out 23 batters in 19.2 innings pitched.
• Lucas Williams is 2-1 with a 3.24 earned run average in 13 appearances. He has 24 K's in 25 innings pitched.
• The UCM defense has a .971 fielding percentage and has committed 40 errors on the season. The Mules have turned 26 double plays on the year.

Worth Noting
• The Mules hit just .250 with runners on third and less than two outs and .200 with runners in scoring position during the Missouri Southern series, but still took two out of three games.
• During MIAA play, the Mules are hitting .316 with runners in scoring position and .639 with runners on third and less than two outs.
• The Mules currently rank ninth in the MIAA in batting with a .292 team average, but they are first in pitching (3.74 ERA) and second in fielding (.971 fld%).

Saving his way in to the record books
• With his save on Sunday against Missouri Southern, Grant Gavin moved in to a tie for ninth place on the UCM single-season saves list with seven and in to a tie for 10th place on the career saves list with 10.
• His next save will move him in to a tie for sixth on the single-season list (8) and ninth on the career list (11).

Streaking Mules
• During his current 14-game hitting streak, Bennett Oliver is batting .393 with 11 extra-base hits, including six home runs, and 13 RBI. He's slugging .821 and has a .444 on-base percentage.
• During that same span, Derek Cornell is hitting .367 with a pair of home runs and a .500 on-base percentage; and Dylan Farrell has four home runs and 16 RBI.
• Cornell has reached base safely in each of his last 30 games.

Single-game tickets available online
• Single-game tickets for Mules Baseball are available online at UCMathletics.com/tickets or at the UCM Athletic Ticket Office in room 101 of the Multipurpose Building.
• Single-game tickets are $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $3 for youth. UCM students get in free with their student ID's.

Last time out
April 19, 2016 - (WARRENSBURG, Mo.) -- The 12th-ranked Mules out-hit Southwest Baptist 17-14 and held off the Bearcats 12-10 on Tuesday afternoon at Crane Stadium/Tompkins Field. The game was originally scheduled to be played in Bolivar, but had to be moved because of heavy rain totals in Bolivar. Because of that, SBU was the home team.
    The Mules (26-10, 24-5 MIAA) got on the board first, scoring two runs in the top of the second inning. Derek Cornell led off the inning with a triple and scored on Matt Safranek's sacrifice bunt. Jackson Schnurbusch added a sacrifice fly as well.
    The Bearcats (17-22, 12-17 MIAA) came right back with four runs of their own in the home half. The big blow was a three-run home run by Christian Binger that bounced off the top of the wall in left and over the wall.
    The Mules regained the lead in the third inning with five runs to take a 7-4 lead. Safranek had an RBI single to plate the first run and scored on Matt Elliott's sacrifice fly. UCM had two on with two out, when Dylan Farrell belted a shot over the wall in left for a three-run home run.
    UCM tacked on two more in the fifth on a Schnurbusch RBI double and a Blake Wilfong run-scoring single. The Bearcats got both runs back in the bottom of the frame on RBI single from Hunter Hisky and Cody Massey to make it 9-6.
    Jake Alexander's RBI single and a run-scoring double play in the sixth gave UCM an 11-6 advantage, but SBU scored two runs without a hit in the seventh to pull within 11-8.
    Bennett Oliver extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a solo home run in the eighth inning to give UCM a 12-8 lead, but the Bearcats battled back with two more runs in the home half to pull within 12-10.
    SBU brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth against Andy Muehlberger, but he got Binger to fly out to center field to end the game. In the process, Muehlberger picked up his second save of the season. Ben Kelsch (1-0) earned the win in relief for the Mules after allowing two runs on five hits in 1.2 innings.
    Miles Kilgore (3-2) took the loss for SBU after giving up five runs on six hits in 3.1 innings of work.

Mules in MIAA play
• The Mules are 24-5 in MIAA play this season after beating Southwest Baptist on Tuesday afternoon in Warrensburg.
• The Mules finished 23-13 in MIAA play last season and finished in third place in the conference's regular season standings.

Mules in non-conference action
• The Mules are 2-5 in non-conference action this season after beating Drury 4-3 on March 16.
• The Mules were 7-9 in non-conference games last season.

The Mules at home
• The Mules are 16-3 at home after beating Southwest Baptist 12-10 on Tuesday afternoon.
• Central Missouri was 15-5 at home during the 2015 season.
• The Mules are 771-152-1 (.835) in 924 games played in this, their 41st season playing home games at Crane Stadium/Tompkins Field.

Mules on the road
• The Mules are 9-3 on the road this season after the win at Lindenwood on April 5.
• The Mules were 12-13 on the road last season.

Mules in neutral site games
• The Mules are 1-4 in neutral site games after going 1-1 against Oklahoma Christian and Central Oklahoma at the Southern Arkansas Invitational in Magnolia, Arkansas.
• UCM was 3-4 in neutral site games last season.

Mules in the rankings
• The Mules moved up four spots this week to No. 12 in the ABCA/Collegiate Baseball Top 30 poll.
• UCM moved up three spots in this week's NCBWA National Poll to No. 13. The Mules are ranked No. 2 in the NCBWA Central Region Poll.
• The Mules dropped two spots in the D2Baseball.com poll to No. 30 and moved up two spots to No. 22 in the Perfect Game Baseball poll.

Mules vs. ranked opponents
• The Mules are 2-4 this season when facing a ranked opponent after beating No. 11 Emporia State in two out of three games last weekend.
• Two of the losses happened at the season-opening Houston Winter Invitational with a third happening the following week at Southern Arkansas and all three were by one run.

UCM during the Crookes era
• Kyle Crookes has a 56-32 (.636) record in his second season as head coach at Central Missouri.
• The Mules went 30-22 during Crookes' first season as head coach. Ten Mules earned All-MIAA honors, including First Team honors for outfielder Trevor Jones, who went on to earn Second Team All-Region honors as well.
• The Mules were 71-29 in Crookes' two seasons as an assistant coach and captured the 2014 MIAA Regular Season Championship. The Mules garnered five First Team All-MIAA selections and three All-America honors during his two years as an assistant.
• Crookes compiled a 292-164 overall record in eight seasons as the head coach at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College before taking over as an assistant coach at UCM.

Mules Baseball History
• The 2016 season marks the 61st in the storied history of Mules Baseball. During that span the Mules have compiled a 1,815-718-9 (.716) record in 2,542 games played.
• The Mules have won 40 or more games 17 times, including 14 straight seasons from 1999-2012, and have won 50 or more games nine times.
• The Mules have won or shared 24 MIAA championships, captured 16 regional titles and two national championships.

Mules Baseball by the Numbers
• 27 NCAA Regional Appearances (20 of the last 22 years)
• 24 MIAA Titles (16 of the last 22)
• 20 MIAA Tournament Titles (16 of the last 22)
• 16 Regional Championships
• 15 Regionals as host site
• 13 Top Five national finishes
• 4 Third place finishes
• 1 National Runner-Up
• 2 National Championships

Mules Baseball: Winningest Team of the 2000s
• The Central Missouri baseball program has had unprecedented success in the last 25 years and has been even more impressive since the year 2000. The Mules were the winningest team in all divisions of the NCAA by victories (508) and percentage (.814, 508-116) from 2000-09. That success has continued through the 2010s.
• The Mules are 784-207 (.791) since the year 2000. An average of 46 wins per season over the last 17 years.

A Tradition of Excellence in Athletics
• Entering the 2015-16 academic year, Central Missouri had won a combined 205 MIAA regular season conference championships in 14 league sports to lead all schools.
• Last season, UCM captured five MIAA regular season titles, and three MIAA Tournament crowns.
• Since 1983, the tenure of Athletic Director Jerry Hughes, UCM has won or shared 151 MIAA championships, more than any other league school.
• Central Missouri has won eight national championships since 1980 (men's and women's basketball in 1984, baseball in 1994 and 2003, women's bowling in 2003, men's basketball in 2014, and women's indoor and outdoor track & field in 2015) and 10 national championships overall.

A Tradition of Excellence in the Classroom
• Central Missouri had 218 student-athletes named to the 2014-15 MIAA Academic Honor Roll with grade point averages of 3.0 or higher.
• 29 UCM student-athletes were named MIAA Scholar Athletes with at least a 3.5 GPA and having earned all-MIAA honors in their respective sport.
• 17 UCM student-athletes were named MIAA Academic Excellence Award winners with a 4.0 GPA.
• UCM had six student-athletes earn Academic All-Region awards in their respective sports with three of those earning CoSIDA Academic All-America honors.
• Since the year 2000, UCM is tied for sixth in NCAA-II with 49 Academic All-Americans.

Upcoming
• The Mules travel to Bolivar on Wednesday, April 27 to take on Southwest Baptist for the final game of their three-game midweek series. UCM will be the home team in that game.
• UCM will host Missouri Western in the final regular season home series beginning on Friday, April 29 at 6 p.m.