Monday, May. 12, 2008

CSU heads to South Atlantic Regional in North Carolina

Cougars seeded second in regional

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.