Written by Neil Frawley

VSU baseball team will take its efforts to Florence, Ala., this weekend for a three-game series against conference rival North Alabama.

After winning 11 of the past 13 games, fresh off a sweep against Christian Brothers, the Blazers are riding quite a hot streak.

“I don’t think it’s been any one thing,” head coach Greg Guilliams said. “I just think we have been a lot more consistent as team, where prior to the last 13-14 games we’ve been inconsistent.”

Some unfortunate news however is that second baseman Matthew Fears suffered season-ending eye injury in the last outing against Christian Brothers.

“With Matthew Fears being out, the guys who are playing; our expectation is for those guys to be able to give it a little more, to be able to grind it out some better at-bats so we can overcome the loss of Matthew,” Guilliams said.

Fears was batting .407 so

VSU will look toward others to step up in order to make up for the loss of production.

The surging Blazers still find themselves in the bottom half of the Gulf-South Conference standings with an 8-7 conference record.

With UNA currently sitting at fifth in the standings, the upcoming series offers VSU an opportunity to gain some ground.

“Whether we win all three this weekend, or lose all three… in reality, we’re trying to position ourselves to be playing our best baseball at the end of the season in the conference tournament,” Guilliams said.

The conference tournament takes the top eight teams within the conference, and the team who wins the tournament will receive an automatic bid to compete in the Division II College World Series.

This post-season each of the eligible members of the GSC will make an appearance in the conference tournament.

“If you win the tournament, it’s a sure thing. So, the only thing that we can do is work towards that automatic bid, and if you fall short of that you have no one to blame but yourself,” Gulliams said.