Conway, Ark.- The Central Arkansas Bears (30-25, 17-13) and the Stetson Hatters (23-31, 13-16) will meet up in the 1st Round of the ASUN Championship in DeLand, Florida on Tuesday, May 19th, first pitch is scheduled for 5 p.m. CT. The last time these two teams played each other was in last year's ASUN Championship, also in DeLand, Florida. The Hatters won that match-up, sending the Bears to the losers bracket where the Bears beat Lipscomb before losing out to FGCU. The Hatters won all the way into the finals where they played FGCU. The final game was rained out, resulting in both Stetson and FGCU being named tournament champions, Stetson was awarded the ASUN's automatic qualification into the NCAA Regional.
The Bears ended this years' regular season in 3rd place in the ASUN Gold Division, while the Hatters finished in 4th place in the ASUN Graphite Division. Seeding for the Championship was decided by RPI rankings. The Bears are the #6 seed and the Hatters are #8. #5 Jacksonville and #7 Austin Peay will also play on Tuesday. at 1 p.m. CT., both games on Tuesday will be single elimination games. The winners in Tuesday's games will move on to play #3 FGCU and #4 UNA, these games will also be single elimination games, the Bears would play FGCU at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. The winners of those games will move on to play #1 seed UNF and #2 seed Lipscomb on Thursday, May 22nd starting the double elimination phase of the Championship. The final is set to be played on Saturday, May 23rd.
The match-up with Stetson- In all games this year the Bears are batting .272 with 501 hits including 64 home runs and a .439 slg% and their opponents are batting .289 with 543 hits including 59 home runs and a .442 slg%. The Bears pitching staff, this season, has a 6.09 ERA, gave up 321 earned runs with their opponents batting .289. The Hatters are batting .262 with 461 hits including 33 home runs and a .372 slg% and their opponents are batting .273 with 496 hits including 52 home runs and a .422 slg%. The Hatters pitching staff, has a 5.46 ERA, gave up 280 earned runs with their opponents batting .273.
All games at the ASUN Championship will be streamed on ESPN+ and UCA games will also be broadcast on The Bear 91.3 or you can follow live stats online.
