CLEVELAND, Miss. – The Lee baseball team will open up the Gulf South Conference Tournament with Montevallo on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. from Ferris Field on the campus No. 1 seed Delta State.
The Flames (25-24) enter as the No. 7 seed and will take on the second seeded Falcons, No. 3 seed West Florida (Sunday 11 a.m.) and No. 6 seed West Georgia (Monday TBD) in pool B.
"The GSC tournament will be a challenging format with the three round robin games and championship game for the two pool winners," said veteran head coach Mark Brew. "We have had good practices this week and the team is looking forward to this opportunity. Everyone is 0-0 at the start of tomorrow and it doesn't matter what has happed to this point anymore. All that matters is this opportunity and I'm excited to see the team compete."
Lee and Montevallo did not meet in the regular season due to the unbalanced conference schedule.
"The first thing you notice when evaluating Montevallo as an opponent is the number of power arms the pitching staff has. They have over 430 strikeouts as a staff and have the best ERA in the conference," noted Brew. "They have three really good starters and some plus options in the bullpen. However, they are not a pitching only team. They rank at top of GSC in many offensive categories."
The Flames will be led by All-GSC First Team selection and senior outfielder Jordan Howard. The speedy lefty leads the team with a .628 slugging percentage. Howard has 11 home runs, 10 doubles, two triples and 38 RBI.
Coach Brew will certainly rely on the arms of starters Wes Albert (2-3, 2.66 ERA) and Pat Morrow (4-0, 3.71 ERA) as well as All-GSC Second Team reliever Logan Workman (3-1, 1.88 ERA) and senior Jay Prior (1-2, 3.80 ERA) out of the bullpen among others.
The winner of pool B will take on the winner of pool A (No. 1 Delta State, No. 4 Mississippi College, No. 5 North Alabama, No. 8 West Alabama). Last season Delta State outlasted West Alabama to take the conference crown.
Fans can listen to each Lee playoff game on Talk 101.3 The buzz or by clicking
here George Starr and Travis Godfrey will have the call.
For full tournament coverage visit
http://www.gostatesmen.com/sports/2017/5/4/2017-gsc-baseball-championship.aspx
