GRANVILLE, Ohio (May 15, 2023) – With four straight North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament Championships under its belt after this weekend, the Denison University baseball team will now look to bring home its first NCAA Regional Championship in program history as the Big Red were selected to serve as a host institution for the NCAA Division III Baseball Regionals for the second year in a row.

The Big Red earned the NCAC's automatic bid to regionals for the fourth year in a row, and will now compete in the NCAA Tournament for the fifth year in a row after doing so for the first time in program history in 2018. Denison, currently ranked No. 11 in the 2023 D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top 25 Poll, will bring a 34-8 overall record into regionals.

Joining Denison in the Granville Regional will be Beloit College (31-12), Baldwin Wallace University (31-10), and Spalding University (34-10). The Big Red will first take on Beloit on Friday, May 19, while Baldwin Wallace will matchup against Spalding.

Baldwin Wallace made the NCAA tournament as one of 17 at-large pool-c bids, while Beloit earned the Midwest Conference's automatic bid into the postseason and Spalding collected its first St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SLIAC) championship for the AQ into the national tournament.

Denison will be making its fifth-straight NCAA tournament and are 7-8 (.467) all-time. Beloit makes its third NCAA appearance (0-4), while BW makes its 10th (17-18, .486). Spalding makes its Tournament debut this spring.

Beloit:
For the third time in school history, Beloit will be playing in the NCAA Regional Tournament. The Buccaneers earned that distinction after a marathon of games on the second and final day of the 2023 Midwest Conference (MWC) Tournament. The MWC regular season champions eclipsed the 30-win plateau for the first time in program history in the process, which is just the seventh time that has happened in conference history. Their 31 wins this season are just three shy of the conference record. Beloit clinched the program's first Midwest Conference championship since 2016. Denison is 0-3 all-time against Beloit after suffering a three-game sweep in 1996.

Baldwin Wallace:
Baldwin Wallace is ranked No. 9 in the 2023 D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top 25 Poll. The top-seeded Baldwin Wallace baseball team exited the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) tournament after a loss to third-seeded Ohio Northern University by a final score of 5-3 in 11 innings. The Yellow Jackets finished the regular season with an overall record of 31-9 and a 15-3 mark in OAC play, winning the OAC regular season title before dropping two games at the OAC tournament. Baldwin Wallace claimed its first outright OAC regular-season title since 1986.

In a top-15 nationally-ranked matchup featuring two teams that clinched a share of their respective regular-season conference titles just one day earlier, Denison came out on top over Baldwin Wallace by a score of 8-4 on Sunday afternoon at Fisher Field back on April 30 of this season. Denison answered a run by Baldwin Wallace in the first inning with a four-run top of the second inning. The Big Red later hit back-to-back two-out home runs from Ari Fierer and Jake Welsch to make it an 8-1 Big Red lead in the seventh inning. Denison's starting pitcher, George Viebrock, picked up the win after finishing with seven innings pitched allowing six hits, one unearned run and one walk while striking out seven. Denison has won six games in a row over Baldwin Wallace dating back to the 2016 season and is 11-13 all-time against the Yellow Jackets.

Spalding:
Spalding beat Webster University twice to take home the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SLIAC) Tournament Championship. It is the first SLIAC Tournament title in the program's history.

In its final game at the Derby City Classic, hosted by Spalding earlier this season, Denison earned a 6-2 win over the Golden Eagles to improve to 5-0 to start the season. It was a battle of two 4-0 teams that took all the way until the final inning to decide a winner. Spalding was also the third team receiving votes in the D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top-25 poll the Big Red faced in their first five games of the season. On the mound, Nick Falter and Will Rettig combined to allow just six hits, one run and no walks through the first six innings of the game. However, the Golden Eagles tied it in the bottom of the seventh with a leadoff single followed by a throwing error on a pickoff attempt, a wild pitch and a passed ball to score the run and make it 2-2. The winning pitcher for Denison was Patrick Neenan, who entered to pitch and got the final out of the seventh inning to strand the go-ahead run on second base before striking out the side, all swinging, in the bottom of the eighth inning. Then in the top of the ninth inning, Denison loaded the bases with nobody out as Eric Colaco led off with a single before Charlie Glennon was hit by a pitch and Fierer walked. Then with one out, that set the stage for Noah Leib, who delivered a three-run double off the wall in left center field to clear the bases. Leib would come around to score an insurance run before Spalding led off the bottom of the ninth with a single followed by a walk to put two runners on. That brought Fierer in to pitch from first base, and Fierer made quick work of the Golden Eagles to earn the save as he got three straight flyouts to end it. That is the only previous matchup between the two teams.

Winners of the sixteen regional tournaments will qualify for eight, best-of-three series at the super regionals, Friday-Saturday, May 26-27. The eight super regional winners will then qualify for the pool play double-elimination championship at Perfect Game Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Friday-Thursday, June 2-8, 2023.
 
2023 NCAA DIII Baseball Championship Selections
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