Granville, Ohio- The No. 2 Denison Big Red baseball team has been selected to host in the regional round of the NCAA Baseball Tournament. The Big Red will host Keystone, Penn State-Behrend, and Manchester after earning the auto-bid following their conference tournament victory over Wooster on Saturday.

The Big Red earned the North Coast Athletic Conference's automatic bid to regionals for the sixth year in a row, and will now compete in the NCAA Tournament for the seventh year in a row after doing so for the first time in program history in 2018. Denison, currently ranked No. 2 in the D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top 25 Poll, will bring a 35-5 overall record into regionals. The Big Red currently holds a 14-game winning streak. 

In the North Coast Athletic Conference tournament, the Big Red narrowly avoided an opening-round loss in a 12-inning showdown with Wooster. They later took down Wittenberg in the semifinals before securing the championship with another win over Wooster. The Big Red had five players named to the all-conference team. 
 
The Big Red are joined by three other conference champions. Reigning from the United East Conference, the Keystone Giants rattled off six wins to earn the auto-bid. The Spartans from Manchester escaped an early extra innings scare before cruising through the winner's bracket in the Heartland Conference tournament to earn their auto-bid. Lastly, the Penn State-Behrend Lions defeated their opponents by a combined score of 33-21 in their three victories, claiming the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference title.
 

Team Quicksheets:

 1 Seed: Denison Big Red 35-5 #2 NCAC 

• Granville, Ohio. 2,400 undergraduate students

2 Seed: Keystone Giants #18 United East Conference 35-9 

• Factoryville, Pennsylvania. 1,150 undergraduate students

3 Seed: Penn State-Behrend Lions RV AMCC 30-9 . 

• Erie, Pennsylvania. 3,250 undergraduate students.

4 Seed: Manchester Spartans HCAC 29-12 

• North Manchester, Indiana. 1,200 students.

 

Granville Regional Info:

The Granville Regional will host four teams from May 16 to May 18. Denison will play Manchester in game one before Keystone will play Penn State Behrend in game two. The winners will play each other on Saturday in game three while the losers will play in game four(loser of game four is eliminated). The winner of game three will move onto the championship game while the loser will take on the winner from game four to decide the final spot in the championship match. The game schedule is as follows(subject to change):

 

Friday, May 16

• Game 1 - 11 a.m. Denison vs Manchester

• Game 2 - 2:30 p.m. Keystone vs PSU-Behrend

Saturday, May 17

• Game 3 - 12 p.m. Loser Game 1 vs Loser Game 2

• Game 4 -3:30 p.m. Winner Game 1 vs Winner Game 2

• Game 5 - 7 p.m. Winner Game 3 vs Loser Game 4

Sunday, May 18

• Game 6 - 12 p.m. Winner Game 4 vs Winner Game 5

• Game 7(if necessary) 30 minutes after Game 6

 

NCAA Tournament Bracket:

The regional round of the NCAA tournament will take place from May 16-18 and will be hosted by campus sites(double-elimination bracket format). Each regional winner will move to the super-regional round from May 23-24, which will be hosted on campus sites and will be a best-of-three series. The eight super-regional winners will move to the Division III College World Series, hosted from May 30-June 5 at Classic Auto Group Park in Eastlake, Ohio. The World Series will take place as an eight-team double-elimination bracket before a best-of-three final series. The North Coast Athletic Conference is the host conference.