Saturday, May 24, 2008

May 24, 2008

DELAND, Fla. _ The Lipscomb Bisons will be playing for their first ever Atlantic Sun Baseball Championship.

The Bisons, the No. 1 seed, beat Gardner-Webb, the No. 4-seed, 8-2 Saturday afternoon here at Melching Field at Conrad Park. It was the first tournament loss for Gardner-Webb.

Who the Bisons will play and when are both unknown at this point. Belmont and Gardner-Webb were scheduled to play at 2 Saturday. If Belmont wins that game then they will meet the Bisons Saturday night for the championship and the conference's automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.

However, if Gardner-Webb beats Belmont the championship game would be delayed until Sunday. NCAA rules will not allow a baseball team to play three games in one day.

If the Bisons win the tournament championship they would be the first No. 1 seed to accomplish that feat since UCF did it in 2002. They are just the third team under the six-team format adopted in 1996 to advance to Championship Saturday in only their second tournament appearance. The others are Florida Atlantic and Troy, both former members of the conference.