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COLUMBUS - The Columbus State University baseball team is back on the diamond on Friday for the start of the 2019 Peach Belt Conference Tournament. The three-day event will be held in St. Augustine, Fla.
The conference tournament format is the same as last season, 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 (30-18) is the sixth seed in this year's tournament and will open up Friday at 8:30 p.m. against third-seeded USC Aiken. The Cougars will play the seventh seed in Francis Marion on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. with a matchup against tournament host Flagler to follow at 5:00 p.m. Saturday evening. All of Columbus State's games will be played at Drysdale Field 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 sixth in the regular season standings this year but only five games separate the eighth seed from the top seed in the tightly contested conference standings. The pitching staff from top to bottom has led the way for the Cougars this season as they enter the tournament as the conference leaders in team earned run average at 4.21.
CSU owns a 3-5 record against its three pool play opponents this season. The Cougars took two out of three from USC Aiken, split a doubleheader against Francis Marion, while they were swept at Flagler.
The winner of the conference tournament will receive the league's automatic qualifying bid into next week's NCAA Southeast Regional. This season only six teams will qualify out of the Southeast Region, with Columbus State sitting at eighth in last week's latest regional rankings.
