MOBILE, Ala. – The University of South Alabama baseball team will open play against No. 8 seed Arkansas State in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament as the No. 1 seed after earning the program's 15th league title.

USA (34-19, 19-9 SBC) will play as the home team in the first-round matchup with the Red Wolves, and first pitch is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at Riddle-Pace Field in Troy, Ala.

Jaguar left-hander Jared Gates (4-3) is scheduled to make his 13th start of the season, while ASU right-hander David Owen (3-4) will make his 15th start of the year.

Gates struck out a career-high nine batters in a career-best 8 1/3 innings pitched in a win on April 5 against ASU in Jonesboro, Ark. The southpaw issued eight walks, but allowed just one unearned run on five hits.

Owen allowed only two runs in eight innings in his start against the Jags, which also came against Gates, and struck out three and issued two walks.

Live streaming and live stats for every game of the SBC Championship, scheduled for May 20-24 , will be available at SunBeltSports.org. Every Jaguar baseball game will be broadcast live on WNTM 710 AM in Mobile, and also available on the iHeartRadio app.

South Alabama finished the regular season as the league's top offensive team in batting average (.285), on-base percentage (.376), hits (528), walks (231) and sacrifice flies (27).

The Jaguar pitching staff led the league in ERA (3.22), opposing batting average (.243) and strikeouts (442), and allowed the fewest hits (441), runs (207), earned runs (174) and home runs (20) in the conference. USA also finished the season with the top-fielding percentage in the conference at .976.

Center fielder Cole Billingsley led the Sun Belt Conference with 25 stolen bases in the regular season, ranked fourth in hits (72), tied for seventh in runs scored (41), eighth in batting average (.338) and on-base percentage (.434), and tied for ninth in walks (32).

Right-hander Kevin Hill (9-0) has been announced as the starting pitcher for USA's second game of the tournament, which will come against either No. 5 Georgia State or No. 4 Georgia Southern on Thursday at either 9 a.m. or 4:30 p.m. A USA win over ASU would put the Jags in the 4 p.m. game Thursday against the winner of the Georgia State-Georgia Southern game. And a loss would put the No. 1-seeded Jags in a 9 a.m. contest Thursday with the loser of the matchup between the Panthers and Eagles.

Hill finished the regular season as the league leader in ERA (1.79), strikeouts (92) and opposing batting average (.197), and tied for the conference lead in wins with nine. USA closer Ben Taylor finished the regular season tied for fifth in the Sun Belt in saves (6) and wins (6).

South Alabama holds a 61-26 all-time lead over Arkansas State after taking two of three games in Jonesboro, Ark., earlier this season. The Jaguars are 7-2 all-time against the Red Wolves in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament after ASU eliminated USA from last season's conference championship with a 4-3 win in a loser's bracket contest. South Alabama last defeated Arkansas State in the SBC Tournament in 2006 with a 4-3 win in Bowling Green, Ky.

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).