Drury Baseball's quest to defend its Great Lakes Valley Conference championship will come down to the Panthers' efforts this weekend in Liberty, Mo., as they close the regular season with a four-game series at William Jewell.

Coach Scott Nasby's Panthers (25-20-1 overall) have put together a season-best, eight-game winning streak heading into their Saturday and Sunday doubleheaders with the Cardinals (33-13) with noon starts each day at the WJC Field. But most importantly, Drury is 17-14-1 in the GLVC and in fifth place in the West Division standings entering the final weekend, where WJC is second at 22-10 as both are trying to secure their spots in next week's GLVC Championship post-season tourney in Westfield, Ind. (May 7-10).

The eight-team GLVC tourney format consists of the top three teams from both the East and West divisions, plus two wild cards from either division based on best winning percentage. With eight GLVC teams currently holding winning pcts. in the .500s, a lot remains unsettled; on the surface, it appears that six West teams are battling for potentially five spots (top three plus the two wild cards), with Drury right in the thick of that group.

Translated: The Panthers need to go to Jewell, win as many of the four games as possible and see how it all shakes out by Sunday evening. Other crucial West matchups involving tourney bid contenders find West third-place Truman State (19-13) at home vs. Maryville (9-23), West fourth-place UMSL (17-13) at West leader Quincy (23-9) and West sixth-place Missouri S&T (17-13) at Rockhurst (10-20).  

Drury has not lost since falling 6-0 in Game Three of a four-game set at Quincy on April 19. In the eight victories since, the Panthers have scored six or more runs in seven of the games and averaged 6.4 runs over the streak. Meanwhile, the DU pitching staff has buckled down as well, allowing three runs or less in five of the eight contests.

After taking three of four games from Missouri S&T last weekend, the Cardinals dropped a 14-7 non-conference game at Newman on Wednesday. Jewell is batting .302 as a team while limiting opponents to a .280 batting average, and the Cardinals pitching staff has a combined 3.65 earned run average.

Drury, meanwhile, is batting .296 while is opposition is hitting an even .300. The Panthers' pitching staff has a 4.49 ERA.

Senior first baseman Luke Tewes leads the Panthers with his .384 average, 10 homers and 36 RBIs while senior outfielder Dallas Williams is batting .360 with eight homers and 30 RBIs and senior catcher Tyler Arthur is at .311 with eight homers and 29 RBIs. 

Austin Faulconer - DU's new all-time victories leader with 25 - is 4-5 with a 3.93 ERA and Trevor Richards is 3-3 with a 4.50 ERA as the two mainstays from last season's GLVC-winning, four-man starting rotation. Senior closer Gage Jacobs has a 2.73 ERA and 11 saves out of the bullpen.

Drury leads the all-time series with WJC 7-5, including a 2-2 split of their four-game set last year at Meador Park.