One month ago the Georgia Southern University baseball team had just beaten the No. 11 Georgia Institute of Technology and was the top-ranked team in the Southern Conference.

Oh, how one month can change things.

The Eagles (21-19, 10-11 SoCon) have now lost eight games in a row and have dropped to sixth place in the conference.

In its 66-year history, GSU baseball has dropped eight straight only three times, this season and two separate times during the 1999 season.

During the month of March, GSU won 14 of its 19 games and carried a .279 batting average. So far during the month of April, the team has lost 10 of 13. During this eight-game losing streak the Eagles have a combined .221 batting average.

What is more alarming than the sheer lack of hits is the number of times that GSU has struck out. The Eagles have K’ed up a SoCon leading 363 times, 33 more times than any other team. In the last eight games alone, GSU has struck out 84 times, an average of over 10 per game.

The three players with the most strikeouts in the SoCon are all Eagles. Junior infielder Ben Morgan, senior infielder T.D. Davis and senior outfielder Scooter Williams have struck out 48, 45 and 43 times this year respectively – more than any other players in the SoCon.

On top of a plummeting batting average and the high number of strikeouts, GSU is also suffering from a lack of power at the plate. The Eagles hit 14 balls out in March but had not hit a single one up until Wednesday of last week against Kennesaw State University.

Add it all up, and it equals out to be a team with a sub-.500 SoCon record that includes two sweeps in the past two series.

The Eagles will have a chance to get their first win in two weeks and to gain some ground in the conference as second-ranked Elon University rolls into town this weekend.