Appalachian State University hosts a nationally ranked opponent for the first time in three years this weekend when it welcomes No. 23 South Alabama for a three-game Sun Belt Conference series. Game times are set for 6 p.m. Friday, 3 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday at Appalachian State's Beaver Field at Jim and Bettie Smith Stadium.

TICKETS
Tickets for this weekend's games cost just $10 for adults, $6 for high school students and $3 for youth (ages 3-12). Tickets for all three games can be purchased online by clicking HERE or at the Smith Stadium gate, beginning one hour prior to first pitch each day. As always, Appalachian State students are admitted free with a valid student ID.

VIDEO
All three games will be streamed live on App State TV. Click HERE to become an App State TV premium subscriber.

RADIO
All three games can also be heard live on the Appalachian IMG Sports Network. Appalachian State baseball radio broadcasts are carried live on WATA 1450 AM in Boone and worldwide at appstatesports.com.

NOTING THIS WEEKEND'S SERIES
• South Alabama (26-8, 15-0 Sun Belt) is ranked in all four of college baseball's major polls this week — No. 23 by Baseball America, No. 24 in the USA Today coaches' poll, No. 25 in the D1Baseball.com poll and No. 29 by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA).

• App State has claimed at least one win over a nationally ranked opponent in four of the last five seasons. Prior to 2011, the Mountaineers had not beaten a ranked team since 1982.

• South Alabama is the first nationally ranked team that Appalachian State has faced at Smith Stadium since the Mountaineers closed the 2013 regular season versus No. 29 Western Carolina. After dropping the first two games of the Southern Conference series against longtime rival WCU, Appalachian State rallied from an 8-1 seventh-inning deficit to defeat the 29th-ranked Catamounts, 9-8, in the 2013 regular-season finale.

• Appalachian State (8-25, 3-12 Sun Belt) returns home this weekend for the first time in two weeks. In their last home series, the Mountaineers took 2-of-3 Sun Belt games from Little Rock. App State's back-to-back, 8-7, walkoff wins over the Trojans on April 2-3 are the only losses that Little Rock has suffered in its last 10 Sun Belt contests.

• The Mountaineers are coming off a gut-wrenching 0-5 road stint, with the last four defeats (last Friday-Sunday at Troy and Tuesday at Tennessee) coming by a total of just six runs.

• Despite the five-game skid, Appalachian State's ultra-young squad has continued to play its best baseball of the season over the last three weeks. After hitting .201 as a team and averaging just 3.1 runs per game over the first 24 games of the season, the Mountaineers are batting .282 as a club and scoring 5.8 runs per game over the last nine contests.

• Matt Vernon continues to swing App State's hottest bat, as he rides a 10-game hitting streak into this weekend's series. The junior-college transfer hit just .095 over his first 12 games as a Mountaineer but is batting .346 with six doubles, a triple, two home runs and 19 RBI over the last 19 contests.

• Vernon's current 10-game hitting streak is tied for the Mountaineers' longest streak of the season. Freshman Tanner Mann-Fix also hit safely in 10-straight games earlier this season.

• Another Mountaineer that is red-hot at the plate is sophomore Tyler Stroup. Stroup owns an eight-game hitting streak, during which he is batting .375 with two doubles, a home run and 12 RBI.

• This weekend's series is the beginning of a four-game homestand for the Mountaineers. App State hosts longtime local rival Wake Forest on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Smith Stadium.