INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference champion Trinity University earned the league's automatic bid to the 2014 NCAA Division III Baseball Championship field of 56 teams.
Complete Tournament Field | West Regional
A total of 56 teams will compete in eight double-elimination regionals and the winners of those eight regionals will qualify for the double-elimination championship at Fox Cities Stadium in Appleton, Wis., May 23-27.
Trinity earned the No. 3 seed in the West regional. The West regional includes No. 1 Linfield (33-7) vs. No. 6 LeTourneau (32-13) opening up at Noon, No. 2 California Lutheran (34-8) vs. No. 5 Illinois Wesleyan (24-18) following at 3:30 p.m. and the night cap No. 3 Trinity (33-8) vs. No. 4 Wisconsin-Stevens Point (29-11) at 7 p.m.
Trinity will make its fifth straight appearance in NCAA postseason play and the school's ninth all-time. With Trinity's first game, the Tigers will play in an SCAC record 34th NCAA tournament game. Trinity has a 16-16 record in NCAA regional play.
Trinity reached the Regional Final, needing two wins over Linfield on the Final Day. The Tigers defeated Linfeild 3-2 to force a final game where the winner went onto the NCAA Championship; however, the Wildcats picked up a 3-1 win to advance.
It is another loaded field as four of the six team in the West Region are Top 15 teams in the latest D3baseball.com polls as well as the ABCA polls. No other single region has that many ranked teams.
Four of the eight regionals feature six teams in a double-elimination format. Those four regionals include the West (McMinnville, Ore.), South (Demorest, Ga.), Central (Moline, Ill.), and Midwest (Whitewater, Wis.).
The remaining four regionals feature eight-team regionals and are the New England (Harwich, Mass.), New York (Newark, N.Y.), Mid-Atlantic (Moosic, Pa.), and Mideast (Marietta, Ohio) regionals.
