Southeast Missouri State baseball team preps for final home series

The realization that the regular season is almost over is slowly washing over members of the Southeast Missouri State baseball team.

So is the fact that they have six Ohio Valley Conference games remaining and hold a three-game lead on first place.

"We start hearing the words like 'magic number' and things like that and it starts to sink in a bit, but with this group it's always just been one game at a time," senior center fielder Cole Bieser said. "I honestly can't even tell you how many games we have left until the tournament, but I know it's getting down to the wire where we need to solidify our spot right now."

Southeast has 10 regular-season games remaining, including a three-game series against Murray State that starts today.

Game 1 is set for 5 p.m. today at Capaha Field.

The Redhawks only need one win to clinch their 20th consecutive OVC tournament berth, which is a league record.

"What's going to get us there is us preparing today, coming out tomorrow and having a good game, a good game Saturday and Sunday, play our game," senior designated hitter Derek Gibson said. "If we take care of the little things and play our baseball game and execute our game plan, everything's going to work out the way you want it to. I think that's been our approach all year. We don't try to do too much. We don't ever try to put any extra pressure on ourselves. We just play our game and work hard and let the chips fall."

Southeast enters its final home series -- and second-to-last Ohio Valley Conference series -- with an overall record of 29-15 and a 19-5 conference record.

The Redhawks can secure a share of the OVC regular-season title with a sweep of the Thoroughbreds.

"They've been very difficult for us the last couple of years," coach Steve Bieser said about Murray State. "They've played us really well, and we've had trouble executing and doing the things we need to do to win series against those guys. They're a very pesky team there where they don't strike out much. They put the ball in play.

"They make you make plays, and that's something we've got to be ready to do coming into this series, is make the plays that we should make and continue to keep our pitching going the way it's going right now and our offense swinging the bats the way that we're swinging them. If we can do those things on our end, then we're going to be alright."

Southeast Missouri State’s Derek Gibson scores against Eastern Illinois in a win last month at Capaha Field. Gibson leads the team with a .408 batting average. (Fred Lynch)

Southeast is hitting .308, which is second in the OVC to Tennessee Tech and 13th in the nation. Gibson (.408) and first baseman Matt Tellor (.386) are third and fifth, respectively, in the conference in batting. Gibson ranks 10th in the country.

The duo is tops in the conference in RBIs. Tellor's 55 RBIs rank third nationally, while Gibson is fourth with 54.

The Redhawks also are second in the country in sacrifice flies. Gibson and Tellor are tied atop the OVC with eight sacrifice flies each, which ranks fourth in the country.

Southeast's 79 stolen bases leads the conference and ranks ninth nationally.

Defensively, Southeast has turned the second-highest amount of double plays in the country with 54.

Steve Bieser is pleased that his team controls its own destiny heading into the last two conference series of the season.

"We expect to play well and win the games, but we still know that we have business to take care of," Steve Bieser said. "No matter what takes place this weekend, we still have to go into Tennessee Tech and win that series. We don't want to take any chances. We're not counting on anybody beating them, so we're kind of looking at it as we're going to go into that series and it's going to be three games and we need to win that series.

"We want to make sure we've got the one-seed and all those things. It's just extremely important to be playing well and to be playing for something late in the season because when there's nothing on the line, it really gets hard to kick it back in gear and play well in the conference tournament. We want to make sure that every game we play there's something on the line."

Southeast's final conference series will be against second-place Tennessee Tech on the road May 9 to 11.

The Redhawks are trying to win their first regular-season title since 2002 and second overall.

"It gets hard to kind of keep yourself occupied on the task at hand, but we do a good job and the coaches do a great job of keeping us in the moment of, 'Hey, you haven't won anything yet,'" Cole Bieser said. "We'll celebrate things, we'll see how things shake out when the season's over, but until then we're going to play -- doesn't matter who we're playing, it's going to be one inning at a time."

Seniors Cole Bieser, Tellor, Gibson, Skylar Cobb and John Logan Zink will be recognized before the first pitch Sunday.

"When you're winning and having fun ... it just seems like it flew by," Tellor said about the season.

There will be free tailgates Friday and Saturday, and a free concert featuring Natalie Stovall and the Drive after Sunday's game.