Eastern’s baseball team will get their 2011 season underway this Friday when they travel to Hattiesburg, Miss. to take on Southern Mississippi in a three-game weekend set.

The Panthers are heading into a season in which they have been picked to finish fourth in the Ohio Valley Conference, according to the conference’s annual pre-season poll.

Despite being predicted to finish behind Jacksonville State, Southeast Missouri, and Tennessee Tech, Eastern will feature two top young talents, as red-shirt junior pitcher Mike Hoekstra was named the preseason OVC pitcher of the year while junior Zach Borenstein was named the top Major League prospect in the state of Illinois by Perfect Game USA, a top scouting service for Major League Baseball.

Borenstein was a force on offense last season for the Panthers, batting .353 while leading the team with 11 home runs and 73 hits. Borenstein also drove in 47 runs for Eastern last year while scoring 50 and going 12 for 15 in stolen base attempts.

Hoekstra also had a solid year in 2010, as the Lansing, Ill. native posted a 4.16 ERA over 67 innings of work, striking out 39 against five walks while compiling a 4-4 record for a team that finished with an overall record of 18-35.

Eastern head coach Jim Schmitz said that pitching will definitely be a strength this season for his squad.

“Even though we hit well in ’09, I think the strength is our pitching and has been,” said Schmitz. “Mike (Hoekstra) is going to anchor that. I think pitching is definitely our strength.”

As far as the starting line-up, Schmitz said the Panther outfield will be a bit quicker this season, providing the Panthers with more opportunities to play with some strategy on the base paths.

“(Sophomore) Nick Priessman will start in centerfield. Nick played a little bit last year, but he really can steal bases. (Sophomore) Danny Rowe was in and out last year, he’s a plus runner. Zach Borenstein, as good of a power hitter as he is, is one of our fastest guys,” said Schmitz. “We’re going to have more team speed. That’s not going to be our main thing, but we’re definitely going to get on the bases and really try to create some pressure there.”

The Panthers were predicted to finish fourth in the preseason OVC poll, and Jacksonville State was picked in the same poll to win the conference. Coach Schmitz said that one of the tricky parts about the league is that the teams are so far apart geographically that it makes it tough to gauge rivals’ recruiting classes.

“Our league is really one where we’re kind of far away from each other, at least we are. We don’t really know who J-State signed,” said Schmitz. “If we were in Alabama maybe we would.”

Schmitz added that each team tabbed ahead of the Panthers in the preseason poll, present individual challenges.

“J-State, year in and year out, is either picked to win it (the conference) or come in second. SEMO has a lot of veterans back,” said Schmitz.

As far as his own team, Coach Schmitz said that they’ve done a good job this offseason of addressing key issues and now only time will tell how they perform.

“We’ve shored up our bullpen, we have some more speed and we definitely have some more pop. I don’t know (what to expect), but we definitely answered all the questions going into the fall.”

Brad Kupiec can be reached at 581-7944 or [email protected]