WARRENSBURG, Mo. – It has only been a season and a half, but for a storied program like Southern Arkansas, it has felt a lot longer. Fifth-year head coach Justin Pettigrew's Muleriders are back in the NCAA Postseason for the first time since 2018 and the confident and rested squad have all of the pieces necessary to make a deep run in the NCAA DII Central Region Tournament. The action, which was pushed back from a Thursday start due to weather in Warrensburg, Missouri, will convene on Friday. No. 5 Southern Arkansas opens play in the program's 13^th NCAA Regional appearance on May 28 in a 7 p.m. first pitch with No. 2 Augustana. Live coverage links are available at www.MuleriderAthletics.com.
 
Southern Arkansas adds this weekend's regional appearance to NCAA Postseason trips earned in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and now in seven of the previous ten seasons that it has been a member of the Great American Conference.
 
Host and region No. 1 Central Missouri welcomes in five other teams for the four-day affair with the champion advancing to the NCAA DII Baseball World Series from Cary, North Carolina, in early June. UCM, the lone representative of the MIAA, is joined by the second-seeded Vikings and fellow NSIC foe No. 3 Minnesota State; the NSIC Regular Season & Tournament Champion, and in addition to No. 4 Arkansas Tech and the Muleriders; Great American Conference Regular Season Co-Champions, and No. 6 Henderson State; GAC Tournament Champions.
 
The Muleriders (27-14) enter the postseason having last played two weeks ago on May 14 against Henderson State. Led by senior second baseman Austin Baker, a D2CCA All-Central Region First Team performer, Southern Arkansas is hitting .302 as a team with Baker's clip of .408 pacing the club and ranking sixth among players in the Central Region.
 
Baker is one of three Muleriders, joined by senior Kobe Morris and sophomore Riley Orr, to have played and started all 41 games for Southern Arkansas this season. Baker leads the team in hits (64), doubles (16), hit-by-pitch (16), runs scored (53), stolen bases (21), and on-base percentage (.518). Four other Muleriders are swinging north of .300 this season with Morris hitting .356 with a team-leading mark in total bases (96) and the second-most runs scored (45), hits (58), doubles (12), RBI (37), walks (29) and stolen bases (17).
 
Southern Arkansas has hit 67 home runs this spring led by All-GAC First Team performer Brett McGee's dozen and All-GAC Honorable Mention selection Tucker Burton's 11. Both players have recorded seven doubles with the Muleriders accounting for 90 two-baggers as a team this season. Of the team's 407 hits, 169 have went for extra bases. As a team, SAU is slugging .536 with an on-base percentage of .421. SAU owns a runs per game average of just over eight courtesy of an offense that has been successful reaching base in multiple ways.
 
The Central Region leader in walks (219; 8^th nationally) with the second-most hit-by-pitch plate appearances in the region (73; 12^th nationally), the Muleriders also rank in the region's top five in stolen bases with 80 as Baker, Morris and sophomore All-GAC Honorable Mention selection Ty Manning (14 steals) pace the club's bag-swiping efforts.
 
A pair of all-conference arms lead the Mulerider pitching staff as sophomore Jacob Womack (All-GAC First Team) and senior Zach Smith (All-GAC Second Team) rank either one or two on the team in ERA, appearances, starts, innings pitched, and strikeouts. Womack's 3.89 ERA, 14 appearances and 77 strikeouts are team-bests, while Smith's workload of 84.1 innings, twelve starts and opponent batting average of .284 pace the staff.
 
Senior Matt Kortendick, freshman Santos Sosa, and sophomore Maddux Solomon help command the relief efforts on the backend with Sosa's 15 appearances, 34.1 innings pitched and 32 strikeouts tops among the team's relievers. Solomon follows with ten appearances and his 18 strikeouts in 20.0 innings are the second-most for players without a start this season.
 
SAU's team ERA of 4.86 ranks seventh in the Central Region and is the fifth-best among the six teams in the postseason tournament with the top four marks held by the top four seeds. The Muleriders' staff collectively holds a 1.59 WHIP, a 1.73 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a mark of 8.2 strikeouts per nine. Southern Arkansas has hit the fewest batters in the region at just 30.
 
Augustana (36-11), the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Regular Season and Tournament Runner-Up, is making its third-straight NCAA postseason appearance. The Vikings finished behind Minnesota State in the regular season standings despite sweeping a late April doubleheader, and in the NSIC Tournament, Augie dropped two of three to the Mavericks.
 
Carter Howell leads six other Vikings with individual clips at .300 or better with an average of .430 and is responsible for a team-leading 80 hits, 56 runs scored, 127 total bases, and a .507 on-base percentage. Augustana rank thirds in the region as team in batting average at .328 and fifth in slugging percentage at .536.
 
Five other players have at least 50 hits with the team's 520 total hits ranking second and sixth regionally and nationally, respectively. Four players have recorded at least 40 RBI led by Jordan Barth's 48. Three players have swiped at least twenty bases this spring led by Howell's 27 and two other players have recorded at least ten which places the team second in the country with 121 steals.
 
On the mound, four players have at least five wins with Max Steffens' 8-2 record leading the way. Ten players have at least ten appearances, but only one has thrown more than 58 innings this spring. Ryan Jares' 63.1 innings are a team-high, while his 1.56 ERA and 88 strikeouts are the best on the squad. Koby Bishop holds a 7-1 record with three complete games and a 2.53 ERA in 53.1 innings of work.
 
Five Viking arms with at least ten appearances own a sub-2.90 ERA with the team's 3.71 ERA ranking 11^th nationally. AU owns the nation's best strikeouts per nine mark at 11.6, the most shutouts in the country with eight, and ranks sixth in the country in strikeout-to-walk ratio at 3.46. Additionally, the staff ranks third in the Central Region in WHIP at 1.27 and fifth in walks per nine at 3.35, but has hit the fourth most batters in the region at 59.
 
Friday's meeting will be the seventh between Southern Arkansas and Augustana and the first not played in Magnolia with the Muleriders leading the series 4-2 with the previous six games played inside Walker Stadium at Goodheart Field. The postseason series is even at 1-1 with both matchups coming in 2018: a 5-3 SAU win which forced the "if necessary" game in that year's Central Regional and a 6-3 win by Augustana in the regional championship game that sent AU to the DII College World Series which they won.