Baseball Sun Belt Conference

Sun Belt baseball set to begin on Friday

2017 Schedule/Scoreboard | 2017 Standings | 2017 Stats | 2017 Sun Belt Baseball Media Guide

NEW ORLEANS - All 12 Sun Belt baseball teams will begin the 2017 season this weekend. Little Rock, Louisiana, ULM and UTA will all be competing in road series, while Arkansas State, Georgia Southern, South Alabama, Texas State and Troy will host.

Appalachian State travels to Wilmington, N.C. for a tournament, while Coastal Carolina and Georgia State will host tournaments. The Mountaineers will face VMI, George Mason and UNC Wilmington while Georgia State welcomes Marshall, Western Michigan and BYU. Coastal will take on Richmond, Western Carolina, James Madison and St. John's.

Louisiana travels to Hammond, La. as they will face Southeastern Louisiana on Friday. The Cajuns will then take on Murray State and Hofstra in Hammond as they await the opening of their renovated facility later this spring.

UTA heads to Nacogdoches, Texas to take on Stephen F. Austin in two games and will play Southeast Missouri State at SFA's home field. Little Rock heads to Tulsa for a three-game set with Oral Roberts while ULM will travel to Dallas for a series with Dallas Baptist.

Arkansas State hosts New York Tech in a four-game series in Jonesboro, Georgia Southern will battle with Middle Tennessee and Troy will host Xavier. South Alabama welcomes Eastern Illinois and Texas State hosts Purdue.

NOTABLE
- 2017 marks the 40th season of Sun Belt baseball and the first year since 1994 the league will play a divisional (East/West) format.
- Sun Belt teams are scheduled to play at least one game against 26 teams that were in the 2016 NCAA Baseball tournament, including College World Series participants Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.
- The 2017 Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship will be seeded with the division winners as the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds, with the No. 1 seed being awarded to the divisional winner with the best conference winning percentage. Seeds No. 3- No. 10 will be selected based off winning percentage in conference play, regardless of division.
- Also new for 2017, the number of teams playing in the conference championship will increase from eight to ten. This would cause two additional games to be played. The first round games would include the No. 8 seed vs. No. 9 seed and the No. 7 seed vs. the No. 10 seed, with both contests conducted as single-elimination games on Tuesday of tournament week.
- Coastal Carolina senior pitcher Andrew Beckwith is one of 55 players named to the preseason Golden Spikes Award watch list, beginning the process of identifying the top amateur baseball player in the country for the 2017 season. The 40th Golden Spikes Award will be presented in partnership with the Rod Dedeaux Foundation on June 29 in Los Angeles.
- Beckwith, a Blythwood product, was 15-1 last season with a 1.86 ERA while his 15 wins led the NCAA and set a CCU single-season record. He was named the Sun Belt Preseason Pitcher of the Year.
- Louisiana's Dylan Moore is just four saves shy of tying the all-time Sun Belt baseball saves record. Moore has tallied 27 saves while at Louisiana.
- Little Rock's Dalton Thomas is the Sun Belt Preseason Player of the Year. The 2016 first-team All-Sun Belt selection started all 54 games for the Trojans last season while hitting .375. His .375 batting average and 87 hits were second best in the Sun Belt. He tallied 52 RBIs and nine home runs with a slugging percentage of .582.