INDIANAPOLIS - The nationally top-ranked University of South Carolina Aiken baseball team remained ranked second in the third NCAA Division II Southeast Region rankings of the 2013 season.
The region rankings were released on Wednesday by the Southeast Region selection committee. The rankings are used to determine the region participants from the Southeast Region for the 2013 NCAA Division II Baseball Championship.
Six teams from the Southeast Region will receive an invitation to the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship. An automatic bid is given to the winner of the Peach Belt Conference, the South Atlantic Conference and Conference Carolinas. The next three highest ranked teams will earn an at-large berth into the national tournament. The No. 1 team in the region entering the NCAA Tournament will host the Southeast Regional.
Two spots have already been claimed in the Southeast Regional. Region No. 5 Coker obtained one of the spots by winning the Conference Carolinas Tournament Championship.
Although not currently in the region rankings, South Atlantic Conference Tournament champion Lincoln Memorial will also be among the field of six.
Mount Olive is currently the No. 1 team in the region. Armstrong is third, while Lander is fourth.
The top-seeded and nationally top-ranked USC Aiken baseball team will face off against eighth-seeded Montevallo in its first game of the 2013 Peach Belt Conference Baseball Tournament at 8:30 p.m. tonight (Wednesday, May 8).
The 2013 Peach Belt Conference Baseball Tournament will be contested May 8-12 at Dolny Stadium at the Jeff May complex in Greenwood, S.C. The championship will be hosted by Lander.
The PBC Tournament is an eight-team double-elimination event whose bracket is modeled on the NCAA World Series model. The tournament will consist of four games per day on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and lead to a single championship game at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 12.
USC Aiken and Montevallo (31-18, 16-14 PBC) will be meeting in the first round of the Peach Belt Conference Baseball Tournament for the second straight year.
The winner of the top-seeded USC Aiken-eighth-seeded Montevallo game will move on to face the winner of the fourth-seeded Lander-fifth-seeded UNC Pembroke game in game No. 8 of the Peach Belt Conference Tournament at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 9.
The loser of the USC Aiken-Montevallo game will face the loser of the Lander-UNC Pembroke game in game No. 6 of the Peach Belt Conference Tournament at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 9.
Winners of 14 of their last 15, the Peach Belt Conference regular-season champion Pacers closed out the regular-season with a 41-9 overall record. The Pacers were 24-6 in league play in the 2013 regular-season.
The 2013 Peach Belt Conference regular-season championship was the second for USC Aiken in the last five years. The Pacers also obtained the league regular-season title in 2009.
The Pacers have three regular-season championships in school history now as they also acquired the 1994 regular-season title. USC Aiken has two Peach Belt Conference Tournament championships (1992 and 1993) in its history.
USC Aiken's regular-season-closing three-game sweep of Georgia Southwestern left the Pacers having claimed 11 of its 13 three-game series in the 2013 regular-season (Lincoln Memorial, Carson-Newman, Shepherd, Francis Marion, Flagler, Young Harris, North Georgia, Augusta State, Lander, Columbus State and Georgia Southwestern).
The Pacers swept three-game series from Lincoln Memorial, Shepherd, Flagler, Young Harris, North Georgia, Augusta State, Lander and Georgia Southwestern.
For ticket information and further information on the 2013 Peach Belt Conference Baseball Tournament, please visit the official tournament website at: http://www.peachbeltconference.org/information/13basetournament/index
All the Pacer baseball action in the Peach Belt Conference Baseball Tournament will be able to be followed live on USC Aiken's official athletic website at www.PacerSports.com.
NCAA Division II Baseball
Southeast Region Rankings (5/08/13)
1 Mount Olive
2 USC Aiken
3 Armstrong
4 Lander
5 Coker
6 Montevallo
7 UNC Pembroke
8 Catawba
