NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The Belmont baseball team (24-11, 10-2) leaves Tennessee for the first time since returning from a sweep of Jacksonville this weekend, playing at Mercer (21-14, 4-8) in a three game Atlantic Sun Conference series starting Friday at 5:00 p.m.
The Bruins, who were off to their best start since 1995 before snapping an eight-game winning streak at Vanderbilt last night, are at the top of the conference standings after sweeping the last two league series. Belmont and Mercer will square off for the first time since BU topped the Bears in the A-Sun Championship game last season.
Mercer has been successful in 2012, holding a 21-14 record, but have failed find similar results in A-Sun play, dropping its first three league series. The Bears took two out of three from Florida Gulf Coast last weekend, and recently split a pair of midweek games, falling to Georgia Tech and defeating Georgia State.
Nick Backlund has been leading Mercer at the plate with a batting average of .429, 10 home runs and 40 runs batted in. He has also tallied 16 doubles and has scored 34 runs. Sunday starter David Randall leads the pitching staff with a 2.74 ERA, while Saturday starter Dimitri Kourtis has won six games on the mound for the Bears.
All three games will be featured on the Bruins Sports Network, and live stats can be found at MercerBears.com. Fans can also follow all of the action of the weekend on the Belmont Baseball Twitter feed.
