The Lions were named the regular-season champions and will host another Southland Conference Tournament bracket in back-to-back years. 

This will be the fifth time the team has hosted the tournament and the first time they have held it in back-to-back years.

Throughout the regular season, Southeastern had a rough start with losses to Kent State and No. 20 Southern Miss, but worked its way up to come out hot in conference play and win its first conference series of the season against Northwestern State.

The Lions never looked back and got their wheels turning hot heading into the middle of the season, with wins over SIUE, ULM and Grambling before they entered their SLC portion of the schedule. 

SLU took the series over SFA back in March and shortly after defeated No. 8 Oklahoma.

The Green and Gold found its rhythm mid-season to win the Ponchatrain Bowl against New Orleans before SLU defeated the newly ranked No. 8 Southern Miss in Hattiesburg, Miss.

Senior third baseman Alex Perry expressed that despite facing hardship at the beginning of the season, the team didn’t let the rough start continue to weigh on them.

“We started the season off rough, losing five straight games. Through all the adversity, we found our identity as a team and just started rolling from there,” Perry said.

Southeastern won its way to the top of the SLC with conference wins over UIW, Corpus Christi, HCU and Lamar.

Its only conference losses were to McNeese in March and the highly anticipated SLC series against UTRGV in April.

Sophomore pitcher Nik Toups spoke highly of his team and has full confidence in himself and the rest of the pitchers to win the SLC tournament. 

“We feel very confident because of the defense we have behind us, and each one of us has a switch that flips on when we hit the field, no matter how big the game is.” 

The Lions, ranked as the first seed, will play HCU, the eighth seed, on Thursday, May 14, at 6 p.m. at Pat Kennelly Diamond.