Big Weekend For South Alabama Baseball And Softball
The #18 ranked University of South Alabama baseball team will host Troy University for a three-game Sun Belt Conference series beginning this evening at Eddie Stanky Field. This series will close out the regular season, but it also will determine who the regular-season conference champion will be.
The Jags are 39-14 overall on the season and 19-8 in Sun Belt play. They have won their last six conference series and are looking to earn their 14th Sun Belt Conference title and a #1 seed for the Sun Belt Conference Championship tournament coming up soon.
The three game series will be played on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings with first-pitch scheduled for 6:30pm each night.
Troy is 37-15 overall and 18-9 in Sun Belt play.
Scheduled to take the mound for the Jags on Thursday night is James Traylor, he has a 5-3 record with a 3.93 ERA. Matt Bell, who is 6-0 with a 2.87 ERA, is scheduled to take the mound for game two on Friday. The Jags have not named their starter for the third game while Troy has not named their starters for any of the games yet.
USA has won seven of their last eight games and enter the series with a 22-6 record at home. In addition to the #18 ranking in both the Baseball America and Perfect Game polls, they also bring in a #14 RPI.
The Jags are looking to take at least two of three games to secure the regular season title and a #1 seed for the conference tournament. But they are also hoping to bring their first NCAA Regional home to Eddie Stanky Field.
While we are on the subject of NCAA Regionals, the Lady Jaguars are gearing up to host their first-ever NCAA Regional at Jaguar Field. It gets underway on Friday with Mississippi State and Florida State facing off in game one followed by South Alabama and Mississippi Valley State facing off in Game two at 6pm on Friday.
The winners from Friday will face on in the first of three games scheduled on Saturday. Then both of the losers from Friday will face off in Game two on Saturday in an elimination game. Then the third game will feature the loser from the first game on Saturday (between the two winners from Friday) and the winner of the elimination game.
Sunday will see the final two teams play for the right to move on with a possible second game scheduled, if needed, to determine who moves on to face the winner of the Austin Regional which consists of #4 Texas, Houston, South Caroline and Army.
Each of the regional games will be aired on ESPN3.