ABILENE, Texas – Coming off a successful opening weekend, McMurry University Baseball will take on Howard Payne University in a nonconference series this weekend.

The first game of the series will be at Walt Driggers Field Thursday at 6 p.m. before the series shifts to Howard Payne for a doubleheader beginning Saturday at noon in Brownwood. Live stats and video links can be found at mcmurrysports.com.

NOTES:

LAST WEEK: The War Hawks took two of the season opening three-game series at Walt Driggers Field against Schreiner University. McMurry won games one, 8-5, and game two, 4-1, before dropping the finale, 3-0.

POE DOMINATES: Junior right-handed pitcher Jack Poe threw seven scoreless innings to get the win in the opener, allowing four hits and striking out five. Poe has now thrown 20 scoreless innings in his three starts against Schreiner, including seven scoreless in the season opener last year.

CHALK IT UP: Senior outfielder Matthew Chalk led the way at the plate for the War Hawks with a .583 batting average, picking up a pair of doubles, as well. He had two three-hit games and scored two runs with two RBIs.

STRONG START: McMurry's starting pitchers of Poe, J.T. Barnes and Juan Valadez allowed just three runs, one earned, over the weekend series in 19.0 innings of work. They scattered 12 hits and struck out 11.

HAMEL SHUTS THE DOOR: Sophomore right-handed pitcher Nick Hamel came on in the ninth inning of both wins to convert a pair of save opportunities.

WEB GEMS: The War Hawks made a number of nifty defensive plays over the weekend, and lead the ASC with a .991 fielding percentage.

SCOUTING HPU: The Yellow Jackets went 0-5 on a season opening trip to Hawaii to take on NCAA II Hawaii Pacific University. Ty McCain leads HPU with a .400 batting average, while RJ Roberts hit two home runs with five RBIs on the trip.