Drury's baseball Panthers will look to make up some ground in the Great Lakes Valley Conference West Division race at home this weekend when they play host to Maryville in a four-game series starting Friday at Meador Park.

Coach Scott Nasby's Panthers (8-8-1 overall, 4-3-1 in the GLVC) will play host to the Saints (9-12, 2-6) with a single nine-inning game at 5 p.m. Friday, a noon doubleheader on Saturday and a single nine to close the series on Sunday, all at Meador.

Drury enters the weekend in fifth place in the West, trailing co-leaders Quincy and William Jewell (both 7-1) and UMSL and Truman State (tied for third at 6-2). The Panthers went 2-1-1 last weekend at Saint Joseph's in Rensselaer, Ind., sweeping Saturday's games by scores of 5-3 and 4-3 before falling 3-2 in 13 innings in Sunday's opener. The series finale that day ended in a 4-4 tie when it was called due to darkness in the 11th inning (SJC field has no lights).

Senior first baseman Luke Tewes is hitting .397 with six homers and 17 RBIs and senior outfielder Dallas Williams is batting .351 with a homer and 12 RBIs to lead the DU offense, which is batting .271 as a team. Junior left-hander Luke Burnidge has a 2-1 record and 2.49 ERA and senior closer Gage Jacobs has a 2.61 ERA and five saves to pace a pitching staff with a combined 3.80 earned run average.

Maryville is batting .302 as a team, with Kaleb Depew hitting .475 and Mitch Carriger batting .385 with 11 RBIs. Mike Wilkinson has a team-leading 12 runs batted in for the Saints, whose pitching staff has produced a 6.74 ERA (last in the GLVC).

The Saints have gone 1-3 in each of their two GLVC series to date, at Bellarmine and at home to Illinois Springfield (last weekend).

Drury leads the all-time series with Maryville 19-3, with six consecutive Panther victories after the teams split a four-game set at Meador in 2013.