When the Lancaster Bible College baseball team leaves for Cincinnati Monday night at six o'clock, they do not want to see the grounds of LBC again until Sunday. Not that they do not all love the beautiful grounds of LBC, but because if they are to arrive back on Sunday, it will mean they had the opportunity to play for the school's first National Championship.

Before the Chargers' (16-16) can dream about playing for a National Championship this Saturday, they must first get by opening-round opponent Ohio Christian University. The Trailblazers, winners of the NCCAA Mid-East Region, are led by Mid-East Region Player-of-the-Year Michael Blevins. OCU defeated Freewill Baptist 11-1 to capture its first-ever regional baseball championship.

The Chargers, winners of the NCCAA East Region for the third time in four years, are also led by the region's Player-of-the-Year, senior Lou Curcio. Curcio earned the honor by notching six wins on the hill this season, and by hitting .378, to go with his 42 hits and 28 RBI.

Curcio and the two other LBC seniors, Ben Markey and Stephen Jacques, lead a balanced Chargers' attack that is not just happy getting to Nationals anymore.

"We are not just content with making it to Nationals, showing up and losing twice," Chargers' Skipper Doug Yager said. "From everything I can tell, the guys are ready to go and they want to do some damage in Cincinnati."

In order to do damage in Ohio, Yager and the Chargers know how important it is to strike early and often.

"Every game it is important to score early," Yager said. "We have said all year long that we want to try and score one run an inning. We want to put our opponent on their heels early and set the tempo."

While setting the tempo is something LBC wants to do early, they know that playing their style of baseball is what will help them win ballgames.

"We need to stay committed to our style of baseball," Yager said. "We need to be in-control and aggressive and we need to play fundamentally sound. If we do those things while honoring the Lord in our actions and play, we feel we have a good chance to win."

Despite winning seven of their last ten games, LBC knows it has not exactly played its best baseball.

"We have not played up to par the last couple of games, but we are not really worried about that," Yager said. "It was a challenge to win those games, especially in the Regional Tournament and we came through it. I think that positive experience is something our younger guys can take and build upon."

In order for LBC to return home on Sunday with a National Championship banner or simply a decent showing at the National Tournament, their best players will have to play well.

"Our one through five guys in the line-up need to hit," Yager said. "Jacques needs to get on base, Moxie [Josh Chamberlin] needs to do his thing at the plate and then we need Caleb Erb to stay on fire, Curcio to hit and [Frank] DiFilippo to break out of his mini-slump."

Erb currently leads the team with 46 hits and a .407 average. DiFilippo is second on the team with a .402 average. Erb, DiFilippo and Curcio all have 41 hits or more, while Chamberlin and Jacques have 35 and 29 hits respectively.

The LBC baseball team has already added three East Region banners in the past four years to the back wall of Horst Athletic Center, their journey to bring home the best banner of them all begins Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. aginst Ohio Christian.

Notes:
-LBC will travel 487 miles to Mason, Ohio for the National Tournament, while Ohio Christian will travel only 85 miles from their campus in Circleville, Ohio.

-LBC has played OCU in men's basketball and women's basketball this season as well. The Trailblazers won both of those meetings.

-Not only do both teams boast their region's Player-of-the-Year, but each school has their region's Coach-of-the-Year as well. Greg Bigam from OCU and Doug Yager from LBC.

-Erb is five hits away from tying the all-time school record of 51 hits in one season set by LBC assistant coach T.J. Horn in 2007.