CSU heads to South Atlantic Regional in North Carolina

Cougars seeded second in regional

By David Ching - dching@ledger-enquirer.com --

Columbus State's baseball team will travel to North Carolina for the Division II South Atlantic Regional rather than stay home and host the games at Ragsdale Field.

The Cougars (41-17), seeded second in the regional, will face fifth-seeded Belmont Abbey (40-20) in Thursday's first round in Mount Olive, N.C. The NCAA will announce game times Monday.

The No. 8 Cougars' slim hopes of hosting the regional faded when North Georgia eliminated them from the Peach Belt Conference tournament Saturday.

Instead, CSU will travel to top-ranked Mount Olive (49-5), a small college whose modest facilities and accomodations created some doubt as to whether it would be feasible for the school to host the six-team regional on campus. That left a small possibility that the NCAA would instead opt to hold the regional in Columbus, particularly if the Cougars — who entered the conference tournament ranked directly behind Mount Olive in the region standings — won the PBC tournament.

CSU is one of three Peach Belt teams in the regional. USC-Aiken (44-15) drew the No. 2 seed and North Georgia (41-19), which won the Peach Belt tournament by beating Francis Marion 10-8 Sunday, will be the No. 3 seed.

Conference Carolinas members Belmont Abbey and sixth-seeded Erskine (44-9) round out the regional field.