The Eastern Kentucky University baseball team will conclude its 2026 season with a three-game series against Bellarmine, beginning Thursday, May 13. The games are scheduled for Thursday and Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern Time, with the finale on Saturday at 1 p.m. All three matchups will be broadcast live on ESPN+.
This series marks the final games of the season for the Colonels, who improved their record to 15-37 overall and 7-20 in Atlantic Sun Conference play after winning a road series at Austin Peay over the weekend. The team has shown recent improvement, winning five of its last eight games.
Among individual performances, Dylan Littlefield has hit .342 over his last ten games, contributing one home run, three doubles, six runs batted in and six runs scored. Pedro Moreno is tied for second in the conference in triples (4), ranks fifth in doubles (15), sixth in walks (34), and eighth in runs scored (47). Khaleel Pratt and Kobe Benson are tied for third place among ASUN players with 35 walks each.
Pitcher Jacob Price earned ASUN Pitcher of the Week honors for a second consecutive week after allowing just one run across his last two starts—spanning fourteen innings—with nine hits allowed, two walks issued and fourteen strikeouts recorded.
Bellarmine enters the series with a record of 19-31 overall and an 11-16 mark within conference play after being swept by Lipscomb over the weekend and losing to Louisville on Tuesday. Graduate student first baseman AJ Swader leads Bellarmine offensively across several categories including batting average (.378), doubles (20), triples (3), home runs (10), RBIs (58) and walks (27). As a team, Bellarmine ranks second in both total runs scored (355) and doubles hit (94) within the conference while holding third place in batting average (.290). Their pitching staff holds an earned run average of 8.24—the second highest among league teams.
In terms of pitching contributions for Bellarmine this season, Deaton Oak has started twelve games as a right-handed graduate student pitcher with a record of two wins against four losses; he has posted an ERA of 8.54 along with twenty-four strikeouts across fifty-two-and-two-thirds innings pitched. Senior right-hander Cade Rusch leads relievers with twenty appearances out of the bullpen; he is three-and-two on decisions this year while earning three saves alongside thirty-six strikeouts over thirty-and-a-third innings pitched.
Looking back at previous matchups between these programs: EKU leads their all-time series against Bellarmine by a margin of twenty-seven wins to sixteen losses plus one tie; however, Bellarmine holds an edge when playing at home in Louisville where they have won eight times compared to seven victories by EKU plus one tie—and currently have won six straight meetings between these schools. In their most recent contest on April twelfth—which resulted in an eleven-to-nine win for Bellarmine—Khaleel Pratt went two-for-three scoring twice while driving home four runners including hitting a grand slam during EKU’s half of the eighth inning; meanwhile AJ Swader finished that game going two-for-five scoring once while also collecting four RBIs.
