INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) tournament champion Centenary College earned its third bid into the 60-team NCAA Div. III Men’s Baseball Tournament, while Trinity University received its 16th bid into the championship field after receiving one of 19 at-large bids. Regional Bracket | NCAA Release
The 60-team field will be broken out into 14, four-team regional sites and two teams will compete at two regional sites. The four-team regionals will use a double-elimination format and the two-team regionals will play a best-of-five series. Forty-one conference champions qualified automatically. The Gents will compete at a four-team regional site, while the Tigers will host one of the two, two team, best-of-five regionals.
This is the fourth time in the last five national tournaments that the SCAC has placed two or more teams in the NCAA regionals. It is the 10th time in league history that two or more teams advanced to the NCAA regionals (1996, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2024) and this current run is the most successful stretch in conference history.
Centenary (23-18), on the heels of capturing its third SCAC Tournament earlier this month, will open NCAA play against regional host East Texas Baptist University (36-8). The Tigers earned a Pool-C at-large bid after earning the American Southwest Conference regular season crown. ETBU, which is making its second-straight NCAA Tournament appearance after advancing to the College World Series last year as a Tournament debutant. Historically the SCAC is 14-12 all-time against ASC opponents in the NCAA Tournament.
The winner of the Gents and the Tigers will face the winner of Claremont-M-S (30-13) and Concordia (TX) (27-16) in the winner’s bracket semifinal. Centenary is 1-5 all-time in the NCAA Division III Tournament, making appearances previously in 2017 and 2022.
Trinity (31-12) is scheduled to host La Verne (26-12-1), which earned a Pool-C at-large bid out of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC). This year marks the second-straight and ninth overall NCAA Tournament appearance for the Leopards, highlighted by the 1995 National Championship. Historically the SCAC is 5-10 all-time against the SCIAC in NCAA Tournament action. This will be the third meeting between the Tigers and the Leopards, with La Verne winning the first matchup back in 2004 and Trinity taking the second contest in 2015.
Trinity enters this weekend’s NCAA Tournament with an overall tournament record of 42-29 and three trips to the Div. III Baseball College World Series, including the 2016 National Championship.
Winners of the sixteen regional tournaments will qualify for eight, best-of-three series at the super regionals, Friday-Saturday, May 24-25. The eight super regional winners will then qualify for the pool play double-elimination championship at Classic Auto Group Park in Eastlake, Ohio, Friday-Thursday, May 31-June 6, 2024.
