SEC Baseball Tournament returns to Hoover Met this week

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The SEC Baseball Tournament returns to Hoover Metropolitan Stadium this week, with Mississippi State picking up the No. 1 seed for 2016.

Twelve teams will battle it out between Tuesday and Sunday to see who gets to be tournament champion, with only Auburn and Arkansas not making the tournament this year.

The bats start cracking at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in a matchup between No. 6 seed Vanderbilt and No. 11 seed Missouri, followed by No. 7 seed Ole Miss vs. No. 10 seed Georgia.

The second session of single-elimination games features No. 8 seed Kentucky vs. No. 9 seed Alabama at 4:30 p.m., followed by No. 5 seed LSU vs. No. 12 seed Tennessee.

On Wednesday, the double-elimination round starts at 9:30 a.m., with No. 3 seed Texas A&M taking on the winner of Vanderbilt and Missouri, while No. 2 seed South Carolina will pick up the winner of Ole Miss and Georgia.

At 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Mississippi State will face either Kentucky or Alabama, and then No. 4 seed Florida – the winner of last year’s tournament — will square off against the winner of LSU and Tennessee.

The games continue all week, culminating with the championship game at 2 p.m. on Sunday. A total of 17 games will be played throughout the week. Here’s the full tournament bracket:

General admission tickets for individual sessions cost $14 for adults and $8 for youth ages 3-12. The Dr. Pepper six-pack is available for $66 and includes six tickets good for any session Tuesday-Sunday. Fans also can buy a general admission ticket plus a hospitality pass for all nine sessions for $625.

A reserved chairback seat for all nine sessions costs $120, while a reserved seat plus a hospitality pass for all nine sessions costs $645.

Parking for the tournament is free, but parking passes for Lot C behind the third base line can be purchased for $50. Tickets can be purchased at secsports.com or by calling 1-877-332-7804.

All games Tuesday through Saturday are scheduled to be broadcast on the SEC Network, while the championship game Sunday is scheduled to be shown on ESPN2.

Last year’s SEC Baseball Tournament had an official attendance of 132,178 people over six days.

This is the tournament’s 19th year at the Hoover Met and the final year on a five-year contract extension that took effect in 2012. Hoover and Birmingham tourism officials are hoping the SEC will keep its baseball tournament in Hoover, but at least four other cities are bidding to steal it away. See more on that here.