W&J to play in baseball regional opener
Washington & Jefferson has been selected as the fourth seed for the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional baseball tournament and will play fifth-seeded Misericordia at 10 a.m. Thursday at Ross Memorial Park.
The Presidents (34-10) enter as an automatic qualifier and champions of the Presidents’ Athletic Conference. W&J is ranked No. 18, according to D3baseball.com/National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, and No. 28 in the American Baseball Coaches Association.
Misericordia (30-12) enters play after winning its seventh-straight MAC Freedom championship Sunday. The Cougars were 8-0 winner over DeSales in the title game.
In other first-round games Thursday, topseed Wooster (35-8) will play eighth-seeded Earlham (29-12) at 1:15 p.m.; third-seeded La Roche (34-8) faces sixth-seeded Keystone (31-13) at 4:30 p.m. and second-seeded Cortland State (33-7) will play seventh-seeded DePauw (31-11) in the final game of the day at 7:45 p.m.
Four teams in the regional are currently ranked in the top 25, including La Roche, Wooster and Cortland State who rank in the top 15. La Roche, Wooster, Cortland State and Keystone each have made recent appearances in the College World Series and Cortland State won the national championship in 2015.
Misericordia and DePauw made regional appearances last season and W&J returns after a one-year hiatus. Earlham is making their first NCAA tournament appearance.
There are eight regionals – four with six teams and four with eight for a total of 56 teams – and each champion will qualify for the double-elimination championship at Fox Cities Stadium in Appleton, Wisc., May 26-31.