BY Minaret

Three games remain in the regular season as the University of Tampa baseball team looks to continue its recent success.

"I'm excited about where our team is at right now, we seem to be peaking at the right time," said head coach Joe Urso.

Urso has good reason to be excited. Tampa went 19-3 in the second half of a 50 game regular season that will conclude in a three game series against Barry Friday and Saturday. The games will decide if Tampa can stay on top the Sunshine State Conference holding a 15-6 record over Nova Southeastern (13-6 SSC) and Florida Southern (15-8 SSC).

"I felt like this conference was so competitive this year that it would come down the last weekend of the year," Urso said.

And it has. NSU will take the lead if they perform well in the three game series scheduled against conference rivals Saint Leo. Florida Southern can only pass Tampa if the Spartans lose all three games to Barry.

"That's our number one goal [winning the SSC]. Our overall goal is a national title but there are steps to getting there," said Urso.

If Tampa finds a way into the regional tournament, faces from previous seasons may reappear. Tusculum College (Tenn.), currently ranked behind Tampa, is the number two seed of the South Region.

"A tough team right now is the No. 2 seed in the region with a week to play," Urso said. "They went deep into the tournament last year so they're bringing back a veteran team."

Tusculum is ranked 17th nationally this year. They challenged Tampa last year, as the Spartans squeaked by in a 5-3 win at the South Regional Tournament. Urso thinks the result will repeat as long as a couple of factors continue to fall in the Spartans favor. One of these is home field advantage. The other is the overall play of his team.

"At times, our offense has lacked consistency, it's been more of pitching and defensively," he said. "It's getting hot at the right time that's so important."

If the Spartans can hold onto this streak, then history could be applying to the University of Tampa. The regular season concludes this weekend at home, followed by the South Regional tournament whose location is still to be determined.

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