April 23, 2009
NORMAL, Ill. - Mike Stalowy and Ryan Court, the back-to-back Missouri Valley Conference Player's of the Week, lead Illinois State into another weekend in Valley play as the Redbirds travel to Southern Illinois for a three-game series at Abe Martin Field starting at 3 p.m. Friday.
Stalowy, who earned the MVC weekly honor April 13, enters the weekend with a team-best .350 batting average and leads the Redbirds (19-13, 9-4 MVC) with 29 RBI. Court, who was named MVC Player of the Week Monday, has raised his average to .318 and knocked his third home run last weekend at Northern Iowa. The two could be the difference makers in a battle of squads with identical .280 batting averages.
Illinois State freshman Ryan Camp (4-1, 4.37 ERA) will put his perfect 3-0 mark in Valley play on the line Friday night when he starts against Adam Curynski (1-4, 5.17 ERA). Illinois State is 5-0 in Camp's Valley starts this season, having won every series opener thus far. Corey Maines (6-2, 3.22 ERA) is slated to start Saturday's game for the Redbirds against Jimmy Cornell (2-1, 2.51 ERA), and Ryan Copeland (3-4, 3.36 ERA) will start for ISU against Andrew Dunn (4-4, 2.98 ERA) in Sunday's series finale.
Chris Serritella leads the Salukis (15-23, 3-8 MVC) in batting average at .345, but Mark Kelly is right behind with a .340 mark. Kelly has belted 11 doubles while starting every game for Southern Illinois.
The Salukis lead the all-time series 76-71-1 and took two out of three meetings last season at Duffy Bass Field. Southern swept the Redbirds during the last series in Carbondale, and haven't won a road series at SIU since 2001.
