MACON, Ga. – The Mercer baseball team will look to put itself back into the Atlantic Sun Championship hunt when it travels to ESTU this weekend for a three-game series.

The Bears have been at the top of the A-Sun Standings for most of the season, but after being swept by Stetson last weekend, the Orange and Black find themselves on the outside looking in.

Mercer enters play this weekend at 20-18 overall and 5-7 in A-Sun action, good for seventh place in the league standings.

The Bears take on the Buccaneers in game one of the series on Friday evening at 7:00 p.m. Games two and three will take place on Saturday afternoon at 1 and 4 p.m.

“This is a big weekend for us and we have a lot to prove after getting swept by Stetson last weekend,” head coach Craig Gibson said. “ETSU is a team that is ahead of us in the standings and we are excited to go out and win this series starting on Friday night.”

The Bears recent struggles are no fault of their middle of the order hitters. Sophomore Jacob Tanis, senior Michael Langley and junior Thomas Carroll have a combined .444 (20-for-45) batting average over the last three games.

ETSU (19-13, 8-4 A-Sun) comes into this weekend's series after most recently dropping an 8-7 decision to Wofford on Wednesday night. The Buccaneers were picked to finish ninth in the 2010 Atlantic Sun Preseason Coaches' poll after returning 12 letterwinners from a 2009 squad that went 25-28 overall and 10-20 in the A-Sun.

Junior Paul Hoilman highlights the Buccaneers offense with a conference leading .450 batting average, a .532 on-base percentage and a .893 slugging percentage.

Mercer owns a 10-4 lead in the all-time series against ETSU.