FLORENCE, S.C. – The sixth-ranked Francis Marion University baseball team will begin its 2007 season at home on Saturday afternoon (Feb. 3) with a doubleheader against Belmont Abbey College.

The twinbill will start at noon on Cormell Field. Swamp Club passes are accepted, while general admission is $3 for adults and $2 for students.

Ivey Jernigan of Timmonsville, a lead groundskeeper at FMU who helps maintain the Patriot athletic fields, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch to open the 2007 campaign.

Seventh-year FMU head coach Art Inabinet welcomes back 18 of 26 lettermen from last year's 41-18 squad that finished second during the Peach Belt Conference regular season, earned the program’s third NCAA Division II tournament invitation in four years, and won the South Atlantic Regional to advance to the Division II College World Series.

Junior right-hander Dylan Owen will start Saturday’s opener, while junior lefty Brandon White will start game two. Owen was 12-3 record with a 2.30 earned run average last year en route to earning first-team All-America honors. White finished 2006 with a 6-1 mark and a 3.72 ERA. Both averaged more than one strikeout per inning pitched last year.

Six of eight position starters also return, led by senior outfielder Nick Stewart, who hit .378 last season with six home runs and 51 runs batted in. Stewart was recently named a pre-season All-American by Baseball America, and was chosen by that publication as the second-best prospect among Division II players for the 2007 Major League Baseball draft. Sophomore third baseman Taylor Norfleet (.322, 2 HRs, 53 RBIs), who was named the 2006 Peach Belt Freshman of the Year, also returns.

Belmont Abbey is coming off a 24-34 mark in 2006.

FMU was 23-7 at home last season and is 93-21-1 in its last 115 home games. Inabinet enters his seventh year at FMU with a 184-125-1 record at the helm of the Patriots.

The Patriots will play at Claflin University in Orangeburg on Sunday at 1 p.m.