W&J baseball goin’ to Carolina for D-III tournament
The Washington & Jefferson College baseball team will travel to High Point, North Carolina for regional play in the NCAA Division III tournament later this week.
The Presidents (36-1), are the No. 2 seed in the regional, which is hosted by Greensboro College, and will play fifth-seeded Birmingham-Southern (25-14) on Thursday (2:30 p.m.). The regional format is a six-team, double-elimination tournament.
Salisbury (25-4) was designated as the top seed after winning the Coast to Coast Conference and will face sixth-seeded Marymount (Va.), winner of the Atlantic East Conference. Salisbury and Marymount will play Thursday at 11 a.m.
Third-seeded LaGrange (24-8) and fourth-seeded Lynchburg (34-13) will meet in the 6 p.m. game Thursday. LaGrange won the USA South Athletic Conference and Lynchburg is the Old Dominion Athletic Conference champion.
W&J is one of 48 teams competing for the Division III championship and qualified by winning the Presidents’ Athletic Conference tournament. The Presidents posted a 25-1 mark in conference play and a 19-0 record in games played at Ross Memorial Park.
W&J opened the season by winning a school-record 22 consecutive games. After dropping a 4-3 game at Chatham April 18, the Presidents ripped off 14 consecutive victories.
The Presidents, who are ranked No. 2 in the most recent D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top 25 poll, will be making their eighth appearance in the NCAA tournament. W&J won regional championships in both 2017 and 2019 to advance to the College World Series.
Birmingham-Southern won the Southern Athletic Association Tournament title April 24. This is Birmingham-Southern’s seventh appearance in the Division III tournament since 2012.
Like the Presidents, the Panthers reached the 2019 Division III College World Series. Birmingham-Southern finished as the runner-ups in 2019. Both W&J and Birmingham-Southern were eliminated from the 2019 World Series by national champion Chapman.