OVC Tournament Preview

No. 1 Belmont (37-19, 18-6 OVC) vs. No. 5 SIUE (27-26, 12-12 OVC)

Thursday, May 26 | 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. CT

ESPN+ | Bruin Sports Network | Live Stats | Game Notes

Wild Health Field | Lexington, Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The Belmont University baseball team will play in their first OVC Tournament contest since 2019 on Thursday morning at 11 a.m. ET, at Wild Health Field in Lexington, Ky., competing as the No. 1 seed against No. 5 Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.

Thanks to winning the regular season championship and finishing with an 18-6 conference mark, the Bruins earned the top seed and the double bye to Thursday's action, which will begin the double elimination format of the tournament. 

SIUE took down both No. 8 Austin Peay, 13-1, and No. 4 Eastern Illinois, 8-6, in elimination games on Wednesday to advance to face Belmont on Thursday.

All games from the 2022 OVC Championship will be streamed live on ESPN+, and all Belmont games will have audio play-by-play broadcast on the Bruin Sports Network. 

Were Belmont to lose Thursday morning's game, they would play at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday in the bottom half of the bracket. If Belmont were to win Thursday morning's game, they would play on Friday at 2 p.m. ET in the next round. The full bracket can be viewed here. 

For complete and up-to-date results from the action in Lexington this week, visit the tournament homepage. 

What's Bruin 

• Belmont enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed thanks to clinching their first OVC regular season championship last weekend with a series win over SIUE in Edwardsville, Ill. 

• Prior to this season, Belmont had never finished higher than third in the OVC standings 

• The Bruins cleaned up with the release of the All-OVC Awards, with a league-high nine players getting selected to an All-Conference Team 

• Belmont also took home three major awards, including head coach Dave Jarvis earning OVC Coach of the Year, sophomore outfielder Guy Lipscomb being selected OVC Player of the Year, and sophomore starting pitcher Andy Bean getting named OVC Pitcher of the Year 

• All three honors marked the first time someone from Belmont earned each of those awards, and it marked the first time since 2018 that a team swept all three major awards (Tennessee Tech) 

• Additionally, Lipscomb and Bean were named First Team All-OVC, while sophomore pitcher Jalen Borders, senior pitcher Kyle Brennan, and sophomore first baseman Brodey Heaton were all named Second Team All-OVC 

• Catcher Blake Barton, pitcher Ethan Harden, pitcher Jordan Zuger, and pitcher Caleb Guisewite were all selected to the OVC All-Freshman Team 

• Belmont's 37 regular season wins equaled the program record for regular season victories (37) 

• Lipscomb, a native of Franklin, Tenn., is the first player in NCAA Division I since 2011 to hit at least .400 and steal at least 40 bases. The center fielder is currently 12th in the country in batting average (.400) and 5th in stolen bases (40) 

• Bean, a native of Fisherville, Tenn., led the OVC in innings pitched (83.1), opponent batting average (.215), and wins (9), and was 4th in strikeouts (74) and 5th in ERA (4.00). At 9-1, Bean is tied for 10th in the country in victories 

• Borders, a native of Alexandria, Ala., was 2nd in the OVC in ERA (3.21), 5th in opponent batting average (.260), and allowed the fewest home runs of any pitcher in the OVC (five in 73.0 innings) 

• Brennan, a native of Franklin, Tenn., owns the program record for career saves (31) and is currently 2nd in the country in saves (14). One more save would tie the program record for saves in a season, held by Jon Ivie (2011) 

• Heaton, a native of Newburgh, Ind., leads the team in home runs (13), the most from a Bruin since 2017. The slugger also is among the national leaders in fielding percentage, having only committed one error in 518 chances (.998) 

• Belmont is tied for 5th in the country in fielding percentage (.983) 

• Belmont went 7-1 in conference series this season, only falling to No. 2 Southeast Missouri in two out of three games on April 29-May 1
  

• Belmont last appeared in the OVC Tournament in 2019, beating No. 5 Murray State as the No. 4 seed before falling to No. 1 Jacksonville State and No. 6 Eastern Kentucky 

• 2022 marks the 6th appearance in the OVC Tournament for the Bruins since joining the league in 2013 

• Belmont made their first and only appearance in the OVC Championship game in 2017, winning three straight elimination games before falling to No. 1 Tennessee Tech in the championship 

• This year marks the 43rd OVC Baseball Tournament; the first elimination style event was held in 1979 (prior to that the winner of each division matched up in a three-game series to be crowned league champion)...Since 2001 the event has been played at a neutral site, first Paducah, Kentucky (2001-09), then Jackson, Tennessee (2010-16), Oxford, Alabama (2017-18), Marion, Illinois (2019), Jackson, Tennessee (2021) and now Lexington, Kentucky (2022) 

• This year marks the 21st at a neutral site...No event was held in 2020 due to the pandemic; last year's field was limited to just four teams 

• Since the tournament went to a neutral site, the No. 1 seed has won eight titles, the No. 2 seed has won five titles, the No. 3 seed has won four titles, the No. 4 has won twice and No. 5 seed has claimed one championship 

• Over the past eight tournaments there have been five different teams win the OVC Tournament (Austin Peay, Jacksonville State, Morehead State, Southeast Missouri and Tennessee Tech). 

Follow Belmont baseball on social media - @BelmontBaseball on Twitter and @belmontbaseball on Instagram - for complete coverage of the Bruins. Stay up to date with all of Belmont's athletic programs via the official app of the Belmont Bruins, available both in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.     

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