Eastern Kentucky University will face Northern Kentucky University in a baseball game scheduled for Tuesday, April 27. The matchup is set to begin at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.
The game holds significance as both teams look to improve their records late in the season. EKU currently stands at 10-34 overall and has a conference record of 4-17 after being swept by North Alabama over the weekend.
Recent performances from freshmen Cooper Pumphrey and Clay Cartledge have been notable, as they combined for four appearances without allowing an earned run over the last four games, striking out four batters in a total of two and two-thirds innings. Silas Shaffer contributed offensively during the series against North Alabama, hitting .400 with three runs scored, a double, one home run, and two runs batted in. Hayden Collins made two appearances against UNA, including one start where he allowed just one run across four innings while striking out three batters. Senior left-hander Gavin Faulkner leads EKU’s pitching staff with 21 appearances this season and has recorded 36 strikeouts over twenty-eight and one-third innings.
Northern Kentucky enters the contest with an overall record of 20-22 and is even at 9-9 within the Horizon League. The Norse have been strong at home with a record of fourteen wins and five losses this season and are coming off a sweep of Oakland where they scored forty-nine runs across three games. Marcus Harrison leads NKU with a .354 batting average along with three home runs, ten doubles, thirty-five RBIs, and thirty-seven runs scored. Jake Paulick tops his team in home runs (ten), RBIs (thirty-eight), and runs scored (forty-two) while maintaining a .333 batting average. Out of the bullpen, Gannon Wentz has made nineteen appearances for NKU posting a record of one win and two losses with an earned run average of three point zero zero; he has struck out twenty-five batters over twenty-seven innings.
In their all-time series history, Eastern Kentucky leads Northern Kentucky thirty-two wins to twenty losses with one tie; EKU also holds thirteen wins to ten losses with one tie when playing in Highland Heights. The Colonels have won two straight matchups between these teams as well as four out of their last six meetings overall.
Their most recent meeting occurred on February seventeenth in Richmond where Eastern Kentucky claimed victory sixteen to eleven behind Pedro Moreno’s performance—he went three-for-four at bat with two walks, scoring three times while driving in another three runners for EKU—while Paulick had two hits in four at-bats along with six RBIs for NKU.
