Entering the 2017 season, the Georgia Southern baseball team was surrounded by some optimism, but even more question marks. The Eagles returned a bevy of position players and almost every major pitching piece from a 2016 team that came within a win of making a regional.
    On the other hand, Georgia Southern still had to contend with the defending conference champs in UL Lafayette and the defending national champs from Coastal Carolina joining the Sun Belt party.
    Now in the final few weeks of the season, the Eagles can boast an impressive 36-20 mark as they head into their role as hosts of the Sun Belt tournament that gets underway today at J.I. Clements Stadium. But despite having the second most wins in a conference with a top-10 national rating, current RPI projections would lead people to believe that no at-large regional bid is on the table and that only a Sun Belt tournament victory will provide a path to a regional.
    So, to paraphrase one of the better baseball movies ever made, I guess there’s only one thing left to do - win the whole dang thing.
    The Eagles have every reason to be confident in their chances at the tournament. In addition to having an overall record on par with any of the top-seeded teams, they also came away with wins in eight of their 10 conference series. In fact, the fifth-seeded Eagles had a winning record against the four teams seeded above them.
    They also have a handful of relievers that - despite a hiccup in the final week of the season - have been as automatic as any bullpen in the nation at nailing down wins.
    On the offensive side of things, batting averages and on base percentages are up from last season, with players like Logan Baldwin and Tyler Martin finding power strokes to complement home run threat Ryan Cleveland and make the batting order more potent than the lineup in last year’s tournament.
    And yet, there seems to be little spotlight on the Eagles’ chances to be the last ones standing this weekend. The reasons for that are understandable.
    For all the series wins, Georgia Southern was never able to put together three solid games for a sweep against even the lower tier of the Sun Belt.
The Eagles have gotten some gems out of their starting pitching, with five shutouts and six complete games. But when the starters have been off, things have come off the rails quickly.
For all the talent and dominating stuff possessed by the back end of the bullpen, walks have come back to haunt Eagle relievers in a few games
Similar to the starting pitchers, the Eagle offense has been electric in spurts, but has also fallen into strikeout-filled ruts that make for low scoring games.
    But the next few days are an all-out sprint to the finish - especially for teams whose only hope for more postseason play is to win the tournament championship. Weaknesses can be exposed and send teams packing, but the Eagles have enough strengths to make a run if they can put it all together for a few days.
    So Ryan Cleveland should really think about how he was left off of the All-Conference team despite hitting 39 home runs and driving in 139 runs over the last three years.
    Landon Hughes should think about why he was left off of that same list despite winning six and saving eight games this season, along with striking out 27.6 percent of the batters he’s faced in his Eagle careers.
    The same grudge can be held by Seth Shuman. The Eagle freshman had no benefit of a redshirt year and missed a few sizable chunks of the season while fulfilling spring duties as a member of the football team. Shuman still managed a perfect 6-0 record in seven starts, but watched as the Freshman of the Year title was awarded to a position player that didn’t crack the top-15 in any relevant statistical category.
    Getting away from individual missions, the freshman trio of Steven Curry, Mitchell Golden and Mason fill out a third of a GS batting order that isn’t very feared despite the young guys combining for a .317 average with four home runs and 62 runs batted in.
    The Eagles hold the No. 5 seed - and a seemingly daunting path to a possible championship game - because they didn’t quite finish the job in a handful of games. All too often, several players had great games, only to be undone by one facet of the Eagles’ game plan falling short.
    But those individuals and small groups of starters, power hitters and shutdown relievers have also been dominant forces at times this season.
    And now it’s time to put it all together.
    The Eagles have the luxury of playing on their home field in the Sun Belt tournament. And that field is all theirs, so long as they earn the right to keep playing on it.