April 10, 2008

McNeese State's Cowboys will be out to avenge an early season loss to UT Arlington when the two teams begin a three game Southland Conference series here on Friday.

First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. at Cowboy Diamond.

During the second month of the current season, McNeese and UT Arlington met in the Maverick tournament in Arlington with the Mavs posting a 26-1 setback on the Cowboys.

Since then McNeese has achieved a 10-22 overall record while the Mavs have gone 12-20. Both teams are 5-7 in league play, UTA participating in the western division of the league and the Cowboys in the eastern division.

The Cowboys are coming off a 14-8 loss to Louisiana-Lafayette while UTA bowed to Baylor by an 8-6 score on Wednesday.

Lefthander Tyler Davis will be on the mound for the Cowboys. In his last appearance, the sophomore hurled seven innings of no-hit ball and wound up beating Northwestern State by a 5-3 score. He's 3-5 on the year with a 5.51 ERA and 44 strikeouts in 49 innings.

The Cowboys have the top hitter in conference games only in catcher Taylor Freeman who is batting .486 in 12 SLC games. In all games Freeman is hitting .390 with four homers and a team high 31 RBIs.

He's also on a 17 game hitting streak, only seven games shy of the school record.

Outfielder Sam Merrill is hitting .339 for the Cowboys while shortstop Shon Landry is batting .325 with five homers and 27 RBIs.

As a team McNeese is batting .275.

Saturday's game carries a 3 p.m. start with righthander Scott Holstein (1-3, 7.21 ERA) set to start and on Sunday the two teams will play at 1 p.m. and righthander Ryan Frantz (l1-5, 8.22 ERA) will be on the mound for the Cowboys.