JACKSONVILLE – Jacksonville State will open the 24-game Conference USA slate this weekend against Louisiana Tech in a three-game series in Ruston, Louisiana.

The conference lid-lifter is set for Friday at 6 p.m. followed by a Saturday afternoon start time of 2 p.m. The weekend concludes with first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. All three games will be streamed on ESPN+ and carried on the Gamecock Sports Network.

The Gamecocks have spent the first four weekend of the season preparing for the first season of CUSA. Jax State enters the conference opening weekend at 9-11 overall and have claimed two of the four weekend series against Memphis and Iowa. The Gamecocks tuned up for CUSA play last weekend in Carbondale, Illinois against the Salukis of Southern Illinois, claiming the Saturday contest of the series. Jax State dropped a 7-4 decision to Samford on Tuesday in its last outing on the diamond. LA Tech begins CUSA play at 17-6 overall after splitting midweek games with LSU and Nicholls.

This weekend's series with Louisiana Tech is the first-ever meeting between the two schools. Jax State has played six other teams from the Bayou State - Centenary, Louisiana-Monroe, LSU, New Orleans, Nicholls and Southeastern Louisiana. The trip to Ruston, Louisiana is the first for the Gamecocks in the state of Louisiana since opening the 2006 season in Hammond, Louisiana for a season-opening series with the SELA. The Gamecocks have played 75 games against teams from the state of Louisiana and have an overall mark of 42-33.

Sophomore Bear Madliak enters conference play riding an 11-game hitting streak and has raised his batting average to a team-best .316 with a team-high 25 hits, including a pair of doubles and two home runs on the season. Over the last 11 games, the catcher from Carrollton, Georgia is hitting .400 with 18 hits and six RBI. Madliak has posted multiple hits in five-of-the-11 games and a multi-RBI outing. Madliak has also been solid defensively with tracking runners down on the base paths. He ranks as one of the top catchers in NCAA Division I baseball in throwing out runners this season. He has collected 13-of-32 on the bases this season.

Sophomore Caleb Johnson begins conference play on a streak as well by reaching base in all 20 games this season and the last 25 games dating back to the final five games of the 2023 season. The shortstop is hitting .276 on the season and has an on-base mark of .371. He ranks second on the squad in hits (21) along with reaching base via a walk and hit-by-pitch a combined 19 times.

Jax State will send senior Will Baker to the mound in the series opener on Friday, while junior Jackson Sleeper will start the middle game of the weekend. Junior Austin Cornelius, who garnered CUSA honors two weeks ago after his outing against Iowa, will look be rebound after a tough start against SIU last Sunday. Baker was solid for a career-high five innings in his start in Carbondale and in line for a win if not for a late SIU rally. Sleeper tallied a career-high seven strikeouts in his 4.0 innings against SIU.

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