On Tuesday March 30 the Panther baseball team traveled to St. Louis to take on the St. Louis Billikens and came back with a 19-10 loss.

In that game, the Panthers walked 18 batters, left 13 men on base and gave up eight runs in the bottom of the second inning.

“That was a low spot for us,” said head coach Jimmy Schmitz.

Alex Chapple had eight of those 18 walks in St. Louis but has been pitching much better as of late.

The Panthers will look to avenge that loss when the Billikens come to Coachs Stadium tomorrow at three o’clock.

After a team has such a dismal performance and they get another shot at them later in the season, revenge may be on their minds. However Schmitz said he’s not thinking revenge as much as he’s thinking about preparation for this weekend.

“There’s only so much you can do in practice,” Schmitz said. “The games are what keeps us sharp.”

Schmitz said going into last weekend’s series against Samford his team was sharp because of the midweek non-conference game against Northern Illinois.

He expects to use St. Louis the same way as the Panthers used Northern.

The Panthers have a big three game series against conference foe, Southeast Missouri State this weekend. The Indians sit in third place in the Ohio Valley Conference at 7-5, just one game behind the Panthers. If the Panthers aren’t sharp for the series, it could hurt their chances of winning the OVC.

Schmitz said he can’t remember the last time the Panthers played well against the Billikens. Off the top of his head, Schmitz thinks they’ve lost their last six to St. Louis.

“We just haven’t played well against them,” Schmitz said. “It doesn’t make sense when you look at the teams we don’t have a problem with.”

This year the Billikens are 11-26 overall and 2-12 in conference. They play in Conference USA, which Schmitz said is a “good conference.”

The Billikens are led by Drew Eder, who is batting .323 with 20 runs batted in. Scott Peden and Kyle Wort both have six homers and are both batting at least .270.

Their weakness looks to be their pitching. Opponents are batting over .300 against 11 of their 17 pitchers.

Kris Weber holds the lowest earned run average (2.14) with at least three innings pitched. Dave Guntorius has the second lowest ERA with a 4.83.

Only one pitcher on the staff, Kris Weber, has a winning record (3-2). However, he has walked as many batters as he has struck out.

The Panthers come into the game at 13-20 overall and 8-4 in OVC play.

Andy Kuntz, Erik Huber, Brian Long and Chris Vaculik will all get some work in tomorrow with Huber starting it off.

“I’ve been impressed with what I’ve been seeing from our 5-8 pitchers,” Schmitz said. “We asked them to step it up and they have.”