MARSHALL, Texas – With post season implications on the line this weekend, the East Texas Baptist University baseball team will hit the road for their final regular season American Southwest Conference series against Louisiana College in Pineville, La. This series will decide where ETBU will land in the final ASC standings depending on how the other teams finish. In the running for hosting is ETBU, Louisiana College, Howard Payne, Concordia-Texas, and Hardin-Simmons University. The top two teams will host the tournament next weekend.
 
In their last home series of the season, the Tigers came away with a sweep against the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Friday's doubleheader saw the Tigers outscore UMHB 16-0, which included a seven-inning 2-0 shutout win by Alan Underwood while Casey Combs collected six hits and four RBI in the two games. Game three on Saturday saw ETBU hang on to a 5-4 win with Chad Boudreaux earning his fourth save of the season and picking up his 100^th career strikeout.
 
For Combs, the weekend earned him another accolade as he would be named ASC Hitter of the Week for the second time this season. Along with his doubleheader performance, Combs finished batting .700 with four runs scored and three stolen bases. This now puts him first on the team with a .422 batting average while sharing the team lead in hits (57) with Landen Barns and homers (13) and RBI (40) with Seth Mikeska. Meanwhile, Derrick Findley has seven wins while Alek Arellano has a team-low 1.86 ERA on the mound.
 
Since starting the season 5-5 after ten games, the Tigers have won 22 of their next 27 games to improve to 27-10 overall. In addition, they are currently in second with a 16-5 record. Trailing Howard Payne University (22-14, 14-4) for the top seed based on winning percentage, ETBU maintains a 1.5 lead over third place Concordia University (TX) (27-9, 13-5). Sitting in fourth place in the conference is LC (27-9, 14-7), who are two games behind ETBU for second in the conference. The final standings will be determined on win percentage due to not all teams playing the same amount of ASC games this year.
 
With much to play for entering their final series, the Tigers can only anticipate an exciting finish to the regular season as head coach Jared Hood points out. "You couldn't ask for a whole lot more than to go into the last weekend with something on the line," said Coach Hood. "I think that keeps the guys sharp and keeps their attention, which can sometimes wonder with college kids. We expect a tough series. Going down to Pineville and playing Louisiana College, who are having a great season this year. They're playing some good baseball and we are too. So it's going to be two quality programs going against each other with something on the line."
 
The Wildcats are fresh off a series win over the University of the Ozarks last weekend. Clayton Noakes is among the top leaders on the team in hits (50), batting average (.391), runs scored (37), RBI (36), and homers (eight). On the mound, Andrew Robinson (2.67 ERA) has eight wins in 57.1 innings while allowing 19 runs on 51 hits. Deauton Delgado leads all pitchers in strikeouts with 52 for the season.
 
The series will start on Friday at 6:00 PM while Saturday's doubleheader will start at 12:00 PM.