ROCK HILL, S.C. --- The Tusculum Pioneers will be the No. 7 seed in this week's Pilot/Flying J South Atlantic Conference Baseball Championship and will face sixth-seeded Newberry in an elimination game this Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. at Smokies Stadium in Kodak, Tennessee.
The Pioneers (23-25) advance to the SAC postseason tournament for a 19th consecutive year and will face the Wolves for a ninth time in league tournament history. Tusculum owns a 6-2 record against Newberry in the SAC Tournament and have won four straight postseason contests versus the Wolves.
The Catawba Indians captured their sixth straight South Atlantic Conference Regular Season Championship. With the crown, Catawba earned the No. 1 seed. Wingate will be seeded second, followed by No. 3 Carson-Newman and No. 4 Lincoln Memorial. The top four seeds will begin play on Friday in the double-elimination portion of the tournament.
Tusculum, Newberry and Lenoir-Rhyne finished tied for fifth place in the final conference standings with 13-14 SAC records. Each team had a record of 3-3 versus the other two, so the tiebreaker used to determine seeding was each team's record versus top-seeded Catawba. With a record of 2-1 against the Catawba Indians, Lenoir-Rhyne earned the No. 5 seed, while Newberry took the No. 6 seed and Tusculum was seeded seventh by virtue of the Wolves' 2-1 record against the Pioneers this year.
Anderson captured the eighth and final seed and the Trojans will play Thursday's first elimination game at 4:30 p.m. against No. 5 Lenoir-Rhyne followed by the Tusculum/Newberry game. The winners of the elimination contests will play on Friday with the lowest seed taking on No. 1 Catawba at noon while the highest remaining seed plays No. 2 Wingate at 3:45 p.m. Friday play will wrap up at 7:30 p.m. when No. 3 Carson-Newman and No. 4 Lincoln Memorial square off.
The tournament will continue on Saturday and Sunday, culminating with Monday's championship game. The winner of the Pilot/Flying SAC Championship will earn the league's automatic bid to next month's NCAA Division II Tournament.
The Pioneers own an impressive 48-30 all-time record in the SAC Championship and have won the SAC Tournament title four times (2005, 2008, 2012, 2016).
2018 Pilot/Flying J SAC Baseball Championship
Smokies Stadium ▪ Kodak, Tenn.
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Game 1: No. 5 Lenoir-Rhyne vs No. 8 Anderson, 4:30 p.m.
Game 2: No. 6 Newberry vs No. 7 Tusculum, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, April 27, 2018
Game 3: No. 1 Catawba vs. lowest seed from GM 1 & 2, Noon
Game 4: No. 2 Wingate vs. highest seed from GM 1 & 2, 3:45 p.m.
Game 5: No. 3 Carson-Newman vs No. 4 Lincoln Memorial, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Game 6: Game 3 loser vs. Game 4 loser, Noon
Game 7: Game 3 winner vs Game 5 loser, 3:45 p.m.
Game 8: Game 4 winner vs Game 5 winner, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Game 9: Game 7 winner vs Game 8 winner, Noon
Game 10: Game 6 winner vs Game 8 loser, 3:45 p.m.
Game 11: Game 10 winner vs Game 9 loser, 7:30 p.m.
Monday, April 30, 2018
Championship Game
Game 12: Game 9 winner vs Game 11 winner, 1:00 p.m.
Game 13: Game 12 winner vs Game 12 loser, 4:00 p.m. (if necessary)
