DELAND, Fla. – The Stetson Hatters play host to the best of the ASUN this week, hosting the ASUN Tournament at Melching Field. Play begins Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM and runs through Sunday, when the ASUN Champion will be crowned.

"Hosting is a great opportunity for us," said Hatters head coach Steve Trimper. "Obviously home field advantage is huge, we play really well at home and we have ever since I've been here. But more than that, we have a great fan base. The City of DeLand invested in this stadium project with us, in the hopes of bringing events to town, and the commerce that this tournament will bring is going to be huge for the city."

The Hatters (33-22, 20-10 ASUN) finished tied for second in the ASUN but received the fifth seed in this week's tournament due to conference seeding standards, which are based on RPI. Stetson is the highest seed in Pool B, which also features Eastern Kentucky (28-28, 15-15 ASUN), Jacksonville State (25-28, 18-12 ASUN), and Austin Peay (25-30, 15-15 ASUN). Pool A features top-seeded Lipscomb (33-22, 23-7 ASUN), FGCU (38-17, 20-10 ASUN), Liberty (26-28, 16-14 ASUN), and Jacksonville (33-22, 17-13 ASUN). The teams will engage in pool play Tuesday through Friday, with the top three teams from Pool A and the best team from Pool B advancing to a single-elimination semifinal on Saturday. The two winning teams will the face off for the title at 1:00 PM on Sunday.

Stetson enters play this week with a 7-5 record over fellow tournament teams but has not faced off against any Pool B opponents. All-time the Hatters are a combined 16-4 against Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, and Austin Peay, but the most recent match-up is a 7-4 win at JSU in 2003.

"We obviously don't know a ton about these teams, as far as head-to-head, but we did a ton of work on the bus last night getting scouting reports together," said the Stetson skipper. "I don't think that that's really an advantage or a disadvantage, at the end of the day they're just another team that we have to go play."

Stetson has won the ASUN tournament eight times, more than any other school, with the most recent title coming when the Hatters hosted in 2018. The green and white looks to have their best foot forward heading into the tournament, winning six out of their last 10 games. The Hatters bats' have been on fire in that span, with the offense scoring double digit runs in five of those outings and at least seven in eight games. As a team, Stetson is hitting a blistering .356, reaching base at a .426 clip, and slugging .564 during that period, blasting 17 home runs and 23 doubles. Eight Hatters are batting over .300 in the past 10 games, and seven have multiple home runs. On the mound over their last 10, Stetson has held opponents, including the vaunted FGCU offense that is one of the nation's best, to a .268 average, with seven pitchers turning in a sub-4.00 ERA.

"All season long we've talked about trying to play our best brand of baseball over the last month of the season, and we're doing that," said Trimper of his team's recent success. "We've been playing really good defense, our frontline pitching has been doing well, and we've got ten or eleven guys swinging the bat really well. And it's not just singles, we're getting extra-base hits and driving our slugging percentage up."

While play begins at 10:00 AM Tuesday morning, the Hatters won't take the field until 7:00 PM that night, taking on Eastern Kentucky, before battling Jacksonville State at 2:30 PM on Wednesday. The Hatters will close out their pool schedule against Austin Peay at 2:30 PM on Thursday, before enjoying a day off on Friday when pool play wraps up. Following the conclusion of Friday's games the semifinals will be decided based on in-pool records. Those semifinals match-ups are set for 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM on Saturday, with the title game set to begin at 1:00 PM on Sunday.
 
For more information on the tournament, including a full schedule and ticket information, fans can visit the ASUN's tournament page HERE.

About Stetson University Athletics: Stetson University's Athletics Program is driven by a shared purpose. It is what inspires, motivates and binds us together. More than a task, a reason for being. THE HATTER PURPOSE is to create and provide an experience of a lifetime through teamwork and relationships to achieve excellence. This purpose is achieved through five Core Values: Communication, Integrity, Excellence, Value People and Commitment. To learn more about the HATS program and our Core Values, visit GoHatters.com/HATS.

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