TAHLEQUAH -- Northeastern State baseball concludes the regular season at Rousey Field to face Missouri Southern in a series spanning Thursday through Saturday.

Thursday and Friday both hold first pitch times of 6 p.m., while the Saturday matchup has a 2 p.m. start time. For the first time since 2022, NSU baseball will be live on radio in Tahlequah, as Friday and Saturday's games can be heard on Lakes Country 102.1 and for free online at lakescountry1021.com.

The RiverHawks (14-33, 11-22 MIAA) earned a pair of victories last week against Central Oklahoma in Edmond and against #3 Central Missouri in Warrensburg. It marked the first win in Warrensburg for NSU against the Mules since 2014. The two victories placed them in a tie for the tenth and final spot above the cut-line for the MIAA Tournament with Missouri Western, with NSU owning the tiebreaker from a series win over the Griffons in March.

The top ten teams in the regular season standings advance to a single-elimination tournament held in Joplin, Mo., beginning on Wednesday, May 7 and concluding with the championship game on Saturday, May 10.

Key Players to Watch:

- Diego Murillo logged six hits last week, including two doubles and his fourth home run of the season. He enters the regular season's final series with the team lead in runs (36), hits (52), doubles (11), RBI (35) and total bases (79). 
- Mason Ruiz homered and provided three base hits overall in Sunday's win over Central Missouri. Ruiz has a base hit in eight of his last ten, holding a .371 batting average across that span (13-of-35).
- Gage Williams looks to provide a stellar conclusion to a productive regular season, with the junior owning a .389 average on the season with a team-leading nine home runs. In the month of April, Williams claimed a .436 batting average (24-of-55) with six home runs and 16 RBI.

Missouri Southern (25-22, 17-16 MIAA) enters the last week of the regular season with wins in three of their last four, including a series win over Rogers State in Joplin. In true away games, the Lions are 8-13 on the season, while they lead the all-time series against NSU (40-31-1). The Lions have won five straight in the series and are one win away from matching their longest winning streak against the RiverHawks. 

Offensively, the Lions are ranked third in the MIAA in batting average (.312) and fifth in runs (347), while they are tied for sixth in home runs (60). Drew Townsend (.370, 11 HR, 29 RBI) is in the league's top ten individually in batting average, while he has a base hit in his last ten games played. Ethan Clark (.348, 8 HR, 53 RBI) is in the MIAA's top ten in RBI and has a base hit in his last nine games. 

The pitching staff is tenth in the MIAA in earned run average (7.19), though they are second in strikeouts (393). The Lions have surrendered the most home runs across any team in the association, falling victim to the long ball 82 times entering the week. Opposing hitters hold a .284 batting average against MSSU pitching, the eighth-lowest clip in the league.