LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Bellarmine University baseball team will host Austin Peay State in a midweek contest at 3 p.m. (ET) Wednesday at Knights Field.

Bellarmine (8-31) and Austin Peay are future conference rivals. APSU athletics will be joining BU in the ASUN starting in the 2022-23 school year.

Bellarmine and Austin Peay will be meeting for the fourth time in the Division-I era. APSU holds a 3-0 lead in the series. Last season, the Governors swept the two games, defeating BU 9-1 at Knights Field and 10-3 at home. This season, APSU claimed a 14-13 home win on March 1.

Not only did Bellarmine and Austin Peay combine for 27 runs in their first meeting this season, they combined for 31 hits, with the Knights amassing 18 and the Governors collecting 13. The total was a then-D1-era record for Bellarmine but has since been surpassed (22 vs. North Alabama on April 9).

ABOUT AUSTIN PEAY
Austin Peay is facing two ASUN opponents this week, as the Governors will welcome North Alabama on Tuesday before Wednesday's meeting in Louisville. They'll carry a 15-25 record into the UNA game.

On Monday, Austin Peay announced a head-coaching change, as Trevor Fitts will take over for Travis Janssen on an interim basis for the remainder of the 2022 campaign and until a permanent replacement is named.

Leading into the North Alabama game, Austin Peay is hitting .296 as a team and six players with at least 107 at-bats are at .296 or higher. Jack Alexander leads the group at .364 and also with nine homers and 42 RBI. Harrison Brown, Gino Avros and Michael Robinson are all batting between .326-.336.

Austin Peay excels at hitting doubles, amassing 96 of them on the season. Four players, led by the 20 of Avros, have racked up 11 or more two-baggers.

In a slugfest of an OVC series, Austin Peay was swept by SIU-Edwardsville over the weekend, falling 18-9, 17-11 and 19-13. The Governors are 7-8 in conference play.

BELLARMINE GAME NOTES
• Head Coach Larry Owens is only three victories shy of becoming the winningest coach in Bellarmine program history. He's looking to surpass the 211 of Deron Spink.
• Bellarmine is hosting its first nonconference game in about a month. The Knights haven't welcomed a non-league opponent since March 29 against Butler.
• In Bellarmine's most recent midweek game, the Knights played at top-ranked Tennessee. That April 19 contest marked the first time in the D1 era the Knights faced a No. 1 team.
• In last weekend's ASUN series at Central Arkansas, Matt Higgins became both the program's all-time home run and RBI leader. The senior left fielder broke the homer record in Friday's game. With a two-run homer in the tail end of Saturday's doubleheader, he added to the record while simultaneously breaking the RBI record. Higgins stands at 38 career homers and 173 career RBI.
• Additionally, Higgins is only two hits shy of entering the program's all-time top 5. He'd tie Jes Staples with 238 career hits. Zac Wiley is next in fourth at 243. Over the weekend, Higgins also moved up to fourth on the all-time runs scored list with 158 for his career.
• Jacob Mulcahy is approaching multiple program career lists as well. The senior right fielder isn't far off from entering the all-time top 15 for hits (16 shy), RBI (14 shy) and home runs (three shy).
• A.J. Arnold has given the offense a lift recently. Since April 15, the senior outfielder/DH has appeared in four games, hitting safely in all of them while going a combined 6-for-10. He's now 9-for-23 (.391) on the season.
• In the opening game of Saturday's doubleheader at UCA, Bellarmine piled up 20 hits. It was the Knights' second-highest total this season and 13th time recording at least 10.

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