The Alabama State baseball team will open a six-game week with mid-week contests at UAB Tuesday and Florida A&M Wednesday and Thursday.
 
The Hornets will play at UAB at 6:30 p.m. at Regions Field Tuesday, and face Florida A&M Wednesday at 5 p.m. and Thursday at 1 p.m. Bamastatesports.com will have internet radio broadcasts of all three games.
 
The Hornets (28-13 overall, 16-2 SWAC) are coming off a series win over Alcorn State. After dropping the opening game of the series, Alabama State won the final two games by a combined score of 23-4.
 
"I've said this many times, but as a team you're defined not by how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get back up," head coach Mervyl Melendez said. "That was the case Saturday. I didn't think we had a lot of intensity in the first game. We made five errors which contributed to the loss. Our guys were not fighting hard, and not working hard. We got that figured out between games of Saturday's doubleheader and started going about things the right way."
 
For the third time this season, the Hornets are scheduled to play six games in a week. UAB (24-12) defeated Alabama State 13-1 in Montgomery on March 5, handing ASU its fourth loss of the season. Florida A&M (15-20) is in a virtual tie in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Southern Division standings. These games are a prelude to this weekend's home SWAC showdown against second-place Alabama A&M (17-20, 9-5) Saturday and Sunday at the Wheeler-Watkins Baseball Complex.
 
"I love playing, and I think our guys love playing more than practicing this time of the year," said Melendez of the full week of games. "It's an opportunity for us to continue to get better and compete. UAB will definitely be a challenge for us, as we have not pitched well in midweek games in the past two weeks. We get to test ourselves against UAB, and then against a much-improved Florida A&M team. They have a well-known coach (former long-time Florida State assistant Jamey Shouppe) that has done it at a high level. They are playing much better baseball.  Going into the weekend, we'll face Alabama A&M, which is also playing better baseball than they have in the past and is a very good offensive ball club. We have a good week of opponents ahead of us."