Baseball | 4/30/2015 7:28:00 PM

SAN MARCOS, Texas – Texas State travels this weekend for the final Sun Belt Conference road series before the end of the regular season. The Bobcats will face SBC leader Georgia State in a three-game series over the weekend before returning home to host Arkansas State and UT Arlington in the final two weekends of conference play.
 
Game Info: Texas State (18-25-1, 10-11 SBC) at Georgia State (26-18, 13-6 SBC)
Site: GSU Baseball Complex – Atlanta, Ga.
Dates: Friday – Sunday, May 1-3
Times: Friday – 5 p.m. CST/6 p.m. EST | Saturday – 1 p.m. CST/2 p.m. EST | Sunday – 11 a.m. CST/12 p.m. EST
 
Probable Pitching Matchup
Friday: #21 RHP Lucas Humpal (4-5, 5.23 ERA) vs. #20 RHP Nathan Bates (4-1, 3.70 ERA)
Saturday: #36 RHP Scott Grist (3-4, 4.92 ERA) vs. #24 LHP Kenny Anderson (4-2, 4.50 ERA)
Sunday: #27 RHP Jeremy Hallonquist (4-2, 5.21 ERA) vs. #49 RHP Cole Uvila (1-5, 4.40 ERA)
 
The Series
The Bobcats and Georgia State had never met until last season, Texas State's first in the Sun Belt Conference. Texas State swept the Panthers in last season's series in San Marcos. Georgia State entered the series with the conference's most powerful offense, but the Bobcats held the Panthers to just four runs over three games, winning 8-1, 4-2 and 4-1.
 
There weren't many hits for either team in the most recent meeting between Texas State and Georgia State, but six Bobcats finished the game with a hit, led by Granger Studdard who knocked in two RBI with an RBI single in the first inning and a sacrifice fly in the seventh for some insurance late in the game. Last season's MLB draftees Garrett Mattlage and Tyler Pearson also added RBIs in the 4-1 victory. Lucas Humpal and Hunter Lemke took care of all the pitching for Texas State in the 2014 series finale, tallying six strikeouts and only giving up four hits and one run.
 
On the Panthers
Georgia State doesn't come into this series with the most powerful offense like it did last season, but the Panthers do have the conference's third best team batting average and fourth best team earned run average.
 
While the team doesn't rank at the very top of the conference, one of the Panthers does. In fact, Matt Rose ranks atop the entire NCAA in home runs with 14 on the season. Shortstop Justin Jones leads all SBC freshmen in batting average, hits and runs and is second in RBI. The Panthers boast conference leaders in homers, RBI and runs scored.
 
As good as Georgia State is, the Panthers are coming off a rough weekend on the road in which they were swept by South Alabama, a team the Bobcats took one off of in Mobile, Ala. Before that series, though, Georgia State had won seven consecutive games.
 
Texas State will face an experienced group of weekend starters with two juniors in Nathan Bates and Cole Uvila and a senior lefty in Kenny Anderson.
 
On the Bobcats
Texas State is looking to turn the tide on the season, coming into the series amid a six-game losing streak and having dropped 10 of the last 12 games. However, the last loss for the Bobcats was very different than previous blemishes on the season. Texas State took that nation's No. 3 Texas A&M Aggies to the very edge in Tuesday's midweek.
 
The Bobcats overcame 16 consecutive retired batters and three errors to force an 11-inning thriller against Texas A&M. The Bobcats were one out away from seeing a 12^th inning until Texas A&M was able to finally win with a walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the 11^th inning.
 
Texas State saw an impressive outing from freshman reliever Tyler Giovanoni, who threw a season-high 74 pitches, the most of all five pitchers the Bobcats threw on Tuesday. He had six of Texas State's eight strikeouts and only gave up one hit, no runs and no walks through 3.1 innings.
 
The Bobcat bats showed up against Texas A&M as well with four Bobcats striking for multiple hits against one of the nation's best pitching staffs. Granger Studdard again made his presence known, knocking two hits for two RBI while Ben McElroy did the same.
 
In addition to that duo, two other Bobcat bats who have been hot in the past 10 games are Tanner Hill and Theodore Hoffman. Hill has a .342 batting average in that stretch with a team-high 13 hits, three home runs, seven RBI and eight runs scored. On limited opportunities, Hoffman has done well, swinging .364 with two runs, two doubles and an RBI.
 
A Look Ahead
The Bobcats will play at Texas for the second time this season on Tuesday. It will be the third meeting of the year between the teams. After that, Texas State hosts Arkansas State and UT Arlington in the final two conference series of the regular season.