ALVA, Okla. – The Northwestern Oklahoma State baseball team will look to build off a ground-breaking series sweep last weekend over Southern Nazarene.

The Rangers took all three games over Southern Nazarene, including two games by the way of the 10-run rule, giving Northwestern it's first sweep over a Great American Conference opponent in the NCAA Divison II era. Head coach Sam Carel and his guys now find themselves just three games back of Southeastern Oklahoma State for the eighth position in the GAC standings, which would qualify them for the post-season tournament.

"Last weekend we came out and we hit," coach Carel said, "We were able to take three and we knew going into April we were going to have to make a little bit of a run and get some help. To be able to move up three games in the standings got us started off right."

Sitting at 6-18 currently in the GAC standings, the Rangers will have to not only catch Southeastern who is currently sitting at 9-13 in the eighth spot, but will have to leap-frog Ouachita Baptist and East Central, who both currently sit at 8-16 in a tie for the ninth spot. The Rangers three remaining series will pit them against Ouachita, Henderson State and rival Southwestern Oklahoma State, making this weekend's showdown with Ouachita critical for the Ranger's post-season fate.

The Ranger offense that has struggled to get going this season has finally seemed to hit their stride at the beginning of the final month of the season. Despite entering this weekend's series with a conference-worst .235 team average, the team has posted a .331 average thus far in the five games during the month of April. The resurgence has been led by a pair of Canadian batters in designated hitter Cooper Stanley, who was voted as the Great American Conference player of the week after his performance in the Southern Nazarene series, and outfielder Greg Carrington.

Carrington has been on a tear during the early stages of the month, going 8-for-18 with four RBI's and two triples, posting an average of .444 during the five games. Stanley has finally found his groove and has been the source of power in the line-up that Ranger fans expected him to be in the pre-season. Stanley has knocked three balls out the park during the month, leading to driving in eight runs and crossing the plate seven times himself.

Stanley has been joined in the heart of coach Carel's line-up by a pair of two more streaking hitters for Northwestern in first baseman Pat Delano and leftfielder Jacob Long, who will both enter the series with batting averages above .400 and have combined to score 11 runs for the black-and-red.

The hot Ranger batters will be looking to take advantage of an Ouachita Baptist (11-27, 8-16 in GAC) squad that will enter the series with a team ERA of 6.39, ranking them one spot ahead of the Rangers in 10^th in the category for the conference. Ouachita will likely send John Franklin Matros out on the mound as their number one starter this weekend as Matros leads the team with 10 starts while producing an ERA of 4.46 during those starts. Aside from Matros, the Tiger pitching staff has proved vulnerable against opposing offenses with just one other pitcher on the roster sporting an ERA below 5.00.

The Tigers have made up for a suspect pitching staff with consistent hitting throughout the season, sporting the 5^th best team batting average in the conference at .275. The Tigers have been led this year by catcher Kyle Alexander, who in the 21 games he has appeared in has hit for a .370 average. Senior Ryan Hammer has also been a reliable bat in the line-up as he has been throughout his career in Arkadelphia, hitting .333 in his 123 at bats this year.

Due to the forecast of adverse weather conditions in Arkadelphia, Ark. this weekend, the games have been rescheduled for a single game on Thursday afternoon beginning at 3 p.m., and then a double-header set to begin at noon on Friday with the second game getting underway immediately after the completion of the first game.