Baseball | 5/16/2016 9:11:00 PM

SAN MARCOS, Texas – The regular season is coming to an end, and the Bobcats are set to play their final midweek game of the season at Texas at 6 p.m. Tuesday night.
 
Series Info: Texas State at Texas
Site: UFCU Disch-Falk – Austin, Texas
Dates: Tuesday, May 17
Time: 6 p.m.
 
Probable Pitching Matchups
#13 LHP Brandon Lewis (2-1, 4.28 ERA) vs. #19 RHP Connor Mayes (0-4, 3.94 ERA)
 
The Series
Texas State has a long series with UT, but the Longhorns have the better of it, standing at 44-9 against the Bobcats. Head Coach Ty Harrington is 5-30, and Texas State is looking for the team's first win in 25 tries. The Bobcats came close in the first meeting of the season, pushing Texas to 11 innings, but fell just short. Last game the Bobcats lost, 6-2.
 
Last Meeting
In the most recent meeting against Texas, the Longhorns went up early with two runs in the first. Texas State tied it in the top of the third, but Texas responded with two runs in the bottom of the inning and a run in each of the fourth and fifth innings to clinch the victory. Ryan Newman led the Bobcats offensively with two RBIs on a 2-for-4 day. Tanner Hill also struck two hits in the game. Jeremy Hallonquist struck out four, as did Chase Hodson in just two innings of work to close out the game.
 
On the Longhorns
Texas is coming off a tough stretch with three consecutive losses to West Virginia and six losses in the team's last seven games.
 
The pitching staff is carrying a 4.12 ERA which is a little bit high for what Texas is used to. The Tuesday starter, Connor Mayes, has a 3.94 ERA, a little down from the last time he faced the Bobcats. He has 43 strikeouts this year to 26 walks while the staff as a whole has 363 strikeouts to 178 walks. Opponents are hitting .268 against Mayes and .260 against the entire team.
 
Offensively, Patrick Mathis leads the team with a .317 batting average. He's the only Longhorn above .300. No Longhorn has more than Zane Gurwitz's 53 hits, but Tres Barrera does have 52 hits on a .294 batting average. As a team, Texas is hitting .264 with 30 home runs, 10 triples, 91 doubles and 417 hits. They've stolen 36 bases this season.
 
On the Bobcats
Texas State dropped the first two games of the weekend but stormed back with a vengeance in the Sunday series finale against Arkansas State, scoring 12 runs to win, 12-3, behind a complete-game performance from Jeremy Hallonquist. The Bobcats are looking to parlay that success into momentum headed into Tuesday night's game.
 
Texas State will start freshman lefty Brandon Lewis, who has a 4.28 ERA and 2-1 record with 16 strikeouts to 12 walks this season. The bullpen has looked solid in recent games though with the Bobcats getting good contributions from Joe Powell, Chase Hodson and Pasquale Mazzoccoli.
 
The Bobcat bats are hitting at a rate of .286 with 41 home runs so far this season. The most recent one came off the bat of Dylan Paul who leads the team in batting average (.354) and is amid a five-game hitting streak, currently the longest one on the team. Behind Paul, though, eight Bobcats are hitting .297 or better with eight having 30 hits or more this season.
 
A Look Ahead
After Texas, the Bobcats will travel for a Thursday, Friday, Saturday series at UT Arlington before returning home to host the Sun Belt Conference Championship Baseball Tournament on May 25-29 to play for an NCAA Tournament berth.