Peach Belt Tournament Set to Begin

May 9, 2007
Spartanburg, S.C. - The 2007 Peach Belt Conference Baseball Tournament gets underway Thursday morning at 11:00 a.m. and will continue through Sunday, May 13 at the Cleveland S. Harley Baseball Park on the campus of USC Upstate.

No. 1 seed Georgia College & State University takes on sixth-seed USC Aiken at 11:00 a.m. Thursday to get the tournament started.  Second-seed Columbus State will battle No. 5 Armstrong Atlantic State at 3:00 p.m.  The host Spartans of USC Upstate enters the tournament as the No. 4 seed and opens tournament play at 7:00 Thursday night against third-seed Francis Marion.  The tournament is a double elimination format.

The Peach Belt Tournament boasts one of the top conference tournament fields in the country with five of the six schools ranked in the Collegiate Baseball Top 30 poll.  Georgia College & State University (44-12) is ranked sixth in the nation and is the only Peach Belt school ranked in the Top 10.  Columbus State (No. 15, 41-15) is ranked 15th and is followed by Francis Marion (No. 22, 35-16), Armstrong Atlantic State (No. 25, 35-20), and Upstate (No. 30, 33-23).  USC Aiken (35-20) is the only team in the tournament not ranked in the Top 30 poll, but was ranked in the poll throughout the season.

Columbus State has won three Peach Belt Tournament championships, while USC Aiken has claimed two.  No other school participating in this year’s tournament has won a conference tournament title.  The Peach Belt conducted a league tournament from 1992-98, but discontinued the event for seven years before bringing the tournament back last year at USC Aiken.  A member of the Peach Belt Conference has advanced to the national championship game of the Division II College World Series on five occasions with Columbus State winning the national championship in 2002 and Kennesaw State claiming the title in 1996.

The top six teams have known they will make the tournament field for more than a week, but not which seed they would hold. It was only after the final weekend of conference play as AASU dropped two of three to North Georgia that created some tension as AASU, USCA and Upstate all finished with 15-15 conference records. USC Upstate earned the tiebreaker thanks to their 5-1 combined record against USCA and AASU. AASU then took the next spot after beating USC Aiken in two of three games during the year.

GCSU is the top seed for the second year in a row after winning the regular-season championship with a 23-7 conference record. The Bobcats reached the final day of the 2006 tournament but fell to Columbus State in the championship game. GCSU has reached the championship game four times, but has yet to capture a title.