Southeast Missouri State baseball team can clinch OVC title with sweep of Tech

The Southeast Missouri State baseball team is on the verge of clinching its second consecutive Ohio Valley Conference regular-season championship and locking up the top seed in the conference tournament.

Redhawks coach Steve Bieser knows those are great accomplishments for his squad, which sits in first place in the OVC standings with a record of 19-5 and a magic number of three, but looks at those achievements as steps along the way to fulfilling loftier goals.

"Whether we're a mid-major or whether we're a major, our goal is the same as the big schools out there. We want to go to the College World Series and we want to win," Bieser said. "I know people think that's kind of crazy from a Southeast Missouri State, and there's many people out there that don't know anything about Southeast Missouri State, but we don't feel that that's so far-fetched."

Southeast (29-15, 19-5) can secure the regular-season title when it hosts Tennessee Tech in its final home series of the season this weekend.

The series is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. today at Capaha Field. Game 2 will be at 2 p.m. Saturday and the finale starts at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Southeast's magic number to clinch the title will shrink with any Redhawks win. Second-place SIU Edwardsville, which is four games behind Southeast, plays a four-game non-conference series at Illinois State this weekend.

The Redhawks celebrated as conference champions on the Golden Eagles' field May 9, 2014, after a 12-8 win, and while they are trying not to focus too much on winning the program's third regular-season title, it's obvious the players and coaches would relish the chance to secure it on their home turf.

"We really want to do it at home, I can tell you that, and we understand the challenge of sweeping Tennessee Tech, which is a very good program, very good team," Bieser said. "I think the tough part there is they have some special individuals. Their Friday night starter can flat out beat anybody when he's right. He's shown that this year. When he's throwing really well, he's super tough. Then their other guys are capable of throwing very well, and they've got some offensive guys that can do some things.

"We know that in a three-game stretch we have to play as close to perfect as possible to win all three games, and that would be very gratifying to be able to sweep a team of that caliber, especially to be able to do it in front of our home fans. That would be nice."

TTU's expected starter tonight is righty Chris Chism, who's posted a 6-2 record and 4.23 ERA with 49 strikeouts.

Senior shortstop Dylan Bosheers, senior outfielder David Allen and redshirt freshman first baseman Ryan Flick pace the Golden Eagles offense. Bosheers, who was the OVC's preseason player of the year and was named to the Brooks Wallace award Watch List for the best Division I shortstop on Tuesday, is hitting .318 with 14 doubles and seven home runs He's also got 33 RBIs and 43 runs.

Allen is batting .314 with 30 runs and 19 RBIs, while Flick has a .307 average with a team-high 46 RBIs. Flick has scored 31 runs and has nine homers and 14 doubles.

TTU, 11-10 in conference and in fifth place in the OVC standings, has a record of 20-22 overall.

Southeast likely will send junior lefty Joey Lucchesi to the mound in Game 1. Lucchesi was named the OVC's pitcher of the week for the second time this season after striking out a career-high 13 batters and allowing just one run on three hits in eight innings against Murray State a week ago. Lucchesi (5-1) is tops in the league, holding opponents to a .202 batting average. He's third in ERA at 3.32 and 62 strikeouts.

The Redhawks have secured pitcher of the week honors four of the last five weeks with Saturday starter Travis Hayes and Sunday starter Alex Winkelman also claiming the award.

Hayes, the defending co-OVC pitcher of the year, has the most wins of any OVC pitcher with a record of 7-3 and has a 4.43 ERA.

Winkelman (3-2) leads the OVC with 66 strikeouts and is second in the conference with a 3.31 ERA

The Redhawks have won all eight of their OVC series so far, with sweeps against UT Martin, Jacksonville State and Murray State. They've won four in a row after dropping a 6-2 decision to regional rival Southern Illinois on April 21 and have won their last seven conference games.

The mid-week loss to the Salukis (10-36) served as a wake-up call for Southeast.

"Really, honestly, the message came across loud and clear after the Carbondale loss, because to me that was not a good loss for us because we just didn't come out and perform," Bieser said. "If we came out and perform and we got beat, I can accept that, but I kind of felt like we felt like we were already there, that everything was working out perfect, that we had things in the bag, and I just wanted to get that message across loud and clear, and the guys have picked up on it and they're feeding off of it. I think that they're really understanding that we can't just go through the motions and expect things to go our way."

Bieser remembers his team's championship season coming to an end in the semifinals of the double-elimination OVC tournament last year and knows his team's only chance for a bid to an NCAA regional and beyond is by winning it this time around.

He is keeping his players focused on preparing the same way -- "the right way" -- every day.

"I don't think we've played a perfect game all season, and we probably won't play a perfect game, but we want to get as close to that perfection as we can with our lineup and with our pitching staff," Bieser said. "If we can get there, I think that we can do the things that we talk about. I mean, I think we've got enough ability, I think we've got enough know-how to do what we really want to do, but you've got to get it all going together at the right time and you've got to be able to sustain that for a few weeks to really do some damage in the playoffs."

Bieser believes last year's conclusion was detrimental to the Redhawks' competitive edge. After taking the title in its final OVC series, Southeast lost at eventual national champion Vanderbilt before concluding with a three-game sweep of IPFW before the conference tournament.

If the Redhawks don't clinch this weekend, they'd still have another opportunity when they conclude the regular-season at Belmont (22-21, 10-10 OVC) May 14-16.

Regardless of when it happens, Bieser said his players know he's more concerned with how they play with a goal to win every game remaining.

Southeast can become the first to win 25 conference games in the history of the OVC if it sweeps TTU and Belmont.

"Last year was great, and we understand that, but we've got a lot of room, we've got to build off of last year," Bieser said. "This year things are headed in the right direction, but we're so far from finishing what we really set out to do."