The Eastern baseball team is riding a three-game win streak and will be home this weekend against Ohio Valley Conference opponent Eastern Kentucky.

The Colonels (21-16, 7-8) have won six of their last 10 with a sweep against OVC foe Tennessee -Martin and a series win against Austin Peay. Eastern Kentucky is tied with Jacksonville State for fifth place in the OVC.

The Colonels will send Casey Collins for game one. Collins has the lowest ERA on the team with a 4.15. Collins has two wins on the season and has 31 strikeouts in seven games. For game two, Eric Nerl will be on the mound. Nerl is 0-2 on the year in five games. He has given up 22 hits in 11 innings and has an ERA of 9.82 with only eight strikeouts. Game three Eastern Kentucky is sending Jack Piekos against the Panthers. Piekos is 3-4 on the year with an ERA of 5.68. Against Piekos batters are hitting .230 which is the fourth lowest batting average against in the OVC.

On the offensive side of things, Ben Fisher has 18 home runs and 50 runs scored which is tied for first in the NCAA. Fisher has 59 hits which is tied for first in the OVC and is ranks second in RBIs and slugging percentage with 52 and .832 respectively.

Junior Dougie Parks had four home runs in his last two games. Parks has nine home runs on the season right which is behind junior Matt Albert’s 12 on the year.

Junior Michael Starcevich earned his fourth save on the season against Lindenwood-Belleville. Starcevich needs two more to be in the top-10 on the all-time list at Eastern.

Junior Devin Rose won his first game going five innings with five strike outs and gave up two runs on five hits.

The Panthers (10-27, 4-11) send to the mound redshirt junior Jake Haberer for game one. This is going to be Haberer’s 11th appearance. In the 10 games he’s played in, he’s went 31 and two-thirds innings and has given up 23 runs on 40 hits. He has a record of 0-3 and has an ERA 5.68 with 34 strike outs. Haberer had a decent outing against Belmont last week. He went five and a third innings giving up nine hits and five runs, three of which were earned. He gave up three walks and had four strike outs.

For game two, the Panthers are sending redshirt senior Brendon Allen. This is going to be his eighth start on the season and his 13th appearance. Allen’s line is 0-6 with a 10.16 ERA and has 33 strikeouts on the season. Last week, Allen went 3.1 innings and also gave up nine hits and five earned runs with only two strike outs.

Game one of the three-game series starts Friday at Coaches Stadium at 4 p.m. Games two and three are at 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Tyler McCluskey can be reached at trmccluskey@eiu.edu or at trmccluskey@eiu.edu