This has been an unpredictable season of baseball for Duquesne, which set school records for longest win streak and most Atlantic 10 Conference victories in a season. Not bad for a team predicted to finish 12th in a preseason vote of the league's 14 managers.

The third-seeded Dukes (24-27-1, 16-10) will meet No. 6 St. Bonaventure (29-22, 15-12) tomorrow in the opening round of the A-10 double-elimination tournament at Campbell's Field in Camden, N.J. Duquesne, which last appeared in the tournament in 2005, swept a three-game series against the visiting Bonnies in late March -- 10-3, 3-2 and 13-2.

"We know we can beat them, that's for sure," said Duquesne's Mike Wilson, a leading candidate for A-10 coach of the year. "I think St. Bonaventure will come in with a little more intensity because they probably were a little too relaxed when we played them. We were just coming off our games in the South, and our record stunk. They probably figured we stunk. Our statistics were backward."

Duquesne has turned things around after starting the season 0-10, a streak that included games against nationally ranked Florida State, South Carolina and LSU. The Dukes followed with a school-record 11-game win streak that included three against St. Bonaventure.

"The best thing we've done consistently was hit," Wilson said. "The pitching has picked up in the league. [Ryan] Juran and [Paul] Bugajski definitely have been surprises."

Both pitchers straightened themselves out and brought down their earned run averages after rocky starts. Juran, a junior right-hander from Shaler, is 6-7 with a 6.64 ERA. He is 5-4 and 4.77 in the league. Bugajski, a sophomore right-hander from Norwin, is 5-3 with a 6.95 ERA overall and 4-0 and 4.60 in the A-10.

Wilson said he plans to start Juran in the first game and Bugajski the second.

"You play the first game just like any other game, but if you lose that first one, you have to pull out all the stops in the second," Wilson said. "My job is to keep the kids relaxed and make sure they don't press. I'll say the same things I've been saying all year. You can't say it's the playoffs and suddenly make changes."

Duquesne, which is 9-6 this season against the other five teams in the tournament, enters with the highest seed in school history.

The other seeds are No. 1 Xavier, No. 2 Charlotte, No. 4 Temple and No. 5 Rhode Island.

Duquesne's leading hitters are junior catcher Mike Carroll (.361, 7 HRs, 39 RBIs) and senior catcher/first baseman Derek Mechling (.348, 12 HRs, 42 RBIs), who is on the "Watch list" for the Johnny Bench award, given annually to the nation's top catcher.

St. Bonaventure, led by senior outfielder Randy Moley's league-best .417 batting average, is seeking its first A-10 championship since 2004. Duquesne never has won the A-10 tournament and the automatic bid to the NCAA Division I championships.

"There's no way to predict what's going to happen in a tournament like this," Wilson said. "A pitcher or two gets hot, and that team could win it all. You just never know."

Just like the A-10 coaches who picked Duquesne to finish 12th.