RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – The No. 19-ranked Arkansas Tech baseball team is set to carry their 2-0 record at the start of the season to the home of the Houston Astros, Minute Maid Park, where they will play three games over this weekend.
 
Among those games, Tech will take on No. 13-ranked Augustana at 10 a.m. on Friday, Maryville at 5 p.m. on Saturday and St. Mary's at 5 p.m. on Sunday.
 
SCOUTING AUGUSTANA
Friday's game with Augie will be their first of the season. A year ago, the Vikings went 36-13 overall and advanced to the NCAA Central Region Tournament as an at-large team. Augie's season would end quickly at the regional as they lost games to GAC members Southern Arkansas, 8-6, and Henderson State, 8-7.
 
Preseason-ranked No. 13 by the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, Augustana returns three ABCA All-Central Region players in Will Olson, Carter Howell and Ryan Jares. Olsen and Howell were also named ABCA All-Americans and Howell was selected as the NSIC Preseason Player of the Year.
 
SCOUTING MARYVILLE
Maryville is set to open their 2022 season at the Houston Winter Invitational and will take on No. 3-ranked Central Missouri on Friday, Tech on Saturday and Arkansas-Monticello on Sunday. Last season Maryville went 19-21 overall and 17-15 in the GLVC.
 
This year, the Saints were picked to finish second in the green division of their league.
 
SCOUTING ST. MARY'S
St. Mary's is already four games deep into their 2022 season as they head into the Houston Winter Invitational this weekend. Those first four games were played at home against Oklahoma Christian and St. Mary's dropped the first three before staving off the sweep in the finale, 10-5.
 
In that series, St. Mary's was out-scored 36-14. Through those four games, the Rattlers only hit .192, going 20-for-104. On the pitching side, St. Mary's has a team ERA of 7.59. The lone win of the weekend went to Karlo Kalifa in relief.
 
TECH TIDBITS
The Wonder Boys are off to the aforementioned 2-0 start with wins over Missouri Western and Mississippi College earlier in the week. In each of those two games, the Wonder Boys hammered out double-digit hits with 10 against Mo Western and 14 against MC.
 
The big offensive games to start the year give Tech a .358 team batting average (24-for-67). They also have a .612 team slugging percentage thanks to four doubles, two triple and three home runs. Five batters are hitting over .400 with Evan Hafley's .556 (5-for-9) average leading the team. Ty Van Meter has been the most productive hitter with a team-leading five RBIs. He also leads with two home runs.
 
On the mound, Tech has a 3.00 team ERA and have 24 strikeouts as a staff in 18.0 innings of work. Patrick Miner and Shane Scott have started the two games for the Wonder Boys and have both wins on their record.
 
Miner struck out nine in his start and allowed just one hit. Scott struckout three in his start.