OZARK, Mo. – Benedictine Baseball returns to the Heart Baseball Championship Series after missing out on the series in 2022.

The Ravens open up the Series as the No. 8 seed and will take on No. 7 seed William Penn University at 10 p.m. Wednesday at US Baseball Park.

William Penn earned the No,. 7 seed after finishing in fourth place in the Heart North with a conference record of 15-17 after going 27-20 overall. Benedictine earned the No. 8 seed after finishing fourth in the Heart South with a conference record of 13-16 and an overall record of 18-27.

Thursday's meeting marks the ninth appearance between the two programs since William Penn joined the Heart and is the third meeting between the Statesmen and the Ravens in the Heart Championship Series. Benedictine knocked William Penn out of the Series with an 11-4 win in the consolation game of the 2019 Series while William Penn knocked out Benedictine with a 5-2 win in a consolation game of the 2021 Series. Benedictine leads the series 5-3.

Benedictine enters the Championship Series winners of five straight after taking down MNU 4-0 to wrap up the regular season at Olsen Stadium last weekend. William Penn enters the Championship Series winners of 4 of their last 6, but dropped the middle two of their four-game series with Mount Mercy last weekend.

The winner of Wednesday's game will take on No. 2 seed Clarke University in the final scheduled game of the day on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. The loser moves to the consolation bracket and will take on the loser of the Baker-MNU game at 10 a.m. Friday.

Evangel University has set up a Tournament Central Page at https://evangelathletics.com/tournaments/Heart_Baseball_Championships/2022-23/index that will have live stats and video links for all games at this year's Heart Championship Series.

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