A sweep by Ole Miss over Arkansas this weekend will give the Rebels the eighth spot in the Southeastern Conference Baseball Tournament, which will be heldMay 17-21 at the Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in Birmingham, Ala.

That may be tougher than expected after the Razorbacks took two of three from No. 1 South Carolina this past weekend.

Ole Miss is currently .023 percentage points ahead of Tennessee and .058 percentage points ahead of Kentucky.

Ole Miss hosts Arkansas in a three-game series this weekend, Kentucy is at Vanderbilt and Tennessee plays at South Carolina.

Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Mississippi State and South Carolina are in. The Gamecocks have clinched the first seed.

Ray Tanner’s South Carolina team has emerged as one of the premier teams in the nation due to what some consider the best pitching staff in all of college baseball. Kip Bouknight is the ace of the staff.

After a year’s absence from the tournaement, Andy Lopez and his Gators are back in the hunt. Former Tennessee third baseman Kurt Keene joins Jason Dill as two of the league’s best players for the Gators.

Mississippi State is the second seed. State is led by third baseman Travis Chapman, who seems to set a school record each weekend.

As it stands right now, Mississippi State would play Auburn, while LSU would face Georgia.

Georgia is coached by Ron Polk, the former Mississippi State coach who came out of retirement this year to coach the other Bulldogs.

LSU has the best catcher in the nation in Brad Cresse, who leads the SEC in home runs and has hit better than .400 througout the season.

Auburn has the best one-two hitting combination in the league with Gabe Gross and Todd Faulkner. Both are hitting for power and average for Hal Baird, who is in his 15th and final season as Auburn head coach.

Undoubtedly, the top two teams will make a great pitch for hosting a regional tournament.

There will be 35 at-large teams competing for the right to get to the Super Regionals. There are a total of 281 college baseball teams eligible at the start of the season.

The 16 regional sites will be announced next Monday and the brackets announced the following Monday.

The selection committee selects 16 No. 1 regional seeds; 16 No. 2 regional seeds; 16 No. 3 regional seeds; and 16 No. 4 regional seeds. From the 16 No. 1 regional seeds, the committee selects the top eight national seeds and ranks them 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.

The regionals are set for May 26-28.

The top four teams in the double elimination field will advance to the Super Regionals June 2-4.

The 16 No. 1 regional seeds will each be placed in a separate regional. The national top eight seeds will be separated in the bracket so they cannot meet until the first round of the College World Series.

The eight remaining No. 1 regional seeds will be placed geographically in the 64-team bracket for a potential super regional meeting with one of the top eight national seeds.

Teams from the same conference will not be placed in the same regional. And teams from the same conference that are one of the 16 No. 1 regional squads cannot meet in the super regionals.

Joey Martin is sports editor of The Democrat. He can be reached by calling 446-5172 ext. 232 or at joey.martin@natchezdemocrat.com.