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COLUMBUS – The 10^th-ranked Columbus State University baseball team is back on the diamond Friday for the start of the 2018 Peach Belt Conference Tournament. The three-day event will be held in St. Augustine, Fla.
 
The conference tournament format is the same as 2016, with eight teams split into two pools. Each pool will consist of round robin play on Friday and Saturday, with the top team from each pool meeting on Sunday in the championship game.
 
Columbus State (38-11) is the third seed in this year's tournament and will open up Friday at 5 p.m. against tournament host and sixth seed Flagler. The Cougars will play second-seeded USC Aiken on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. with a matchup against seventh-seeded Young Harris at 8:30 p.m. Saturday evening. All of Columbus State's games will be played at Flagler.
 
The Cougars own a conference-best five PBC Tournament titles, winning most recently in 2016. CSU also took home the crown in 1994, 1996, 2006 and 2010.
 
Columbus State finished third in the regular season standings this year and is one of four Peach Belt schools in this week's Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll. The Cougars enter the tournament as the conference leaders in home runs and earned run average.
 
CSU owned a 4-5 record against its three pool play opponents this season. The Cougars took two out of three from Flagler and Young Harris, while they were swept at USC Aiken.
 
The winner of the conference tournament will receive the league's automatic qualifying bid into next week's NCAA Southeast Regional. Seven teams will qualify out of the Southeast Region, with Columbus State sitting at fourth in this week's regional rankings