The second time has been the charm in Western’s mid-week games this season.

Western (31-12, 16-5 Sun Belt Conference) defeated Austin Peay 14-4 on Tuesday night, avenging a loss to the Governors on April 14.

The Toppers have five two-game mid-week series on their 2009 schedule and haven’t been swept in any of them.

Coach Chris Finwood said that because the second games of most of those series have been played at Denes Field, the team has had a better chance of evening out each season series.

“I think it’s more how our guys maybe approach playing at home,” he said. “We’ve tried to put a lot of emphasis on defending our home field and how much that means to our program. People want to see you win at home.”

The Toppers lost at Eastern Kentucky on a walk-off two-run home run on March 18 but defeated the Colonels at home on April 22, a game that junior third baseman Wade Gaynor said has motivated the team for the last few weeks of the season.

“We talked about it, actually, after that loss,” Gaynor said. “We really wanted to get them back after a walk-off, so it was a huge win for us. We’re getting close to tournament time, and we’re excited to finish the season out.”

The Toppers have a 23-2 home record with four home games left on the schedule, including a May 12 match-up with Louisville, who won the first game of the season series 7-6 on March 25.

“We want to come in and get any win,” senior right fielder Chad Cregar said. “It doesn’t matter who you’re playing. But we played them two games last year really good and split with them, so just let them come to our place, and hopefully, we can split with them again.”

Western has won eight of 14 mid-week games this season, including six of their last seven.

Cregar said that at the beginning of the season, the team struggled to apply their weekend approach to mid-week games.

“We’ve really come around and taken that weekend attitude and played aggressive all week long,” he said. “We’ve had great focus, and I think early on, we lost that focus in the mid-week games. We played well, but we didn’t have that mental game.”

The Toppers return to action this weekend for a three-game series against Arkansas Little-Rock beginning at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Denes Field.