NCAA DII Championship Bracket
INDIANAPOLIS – Great Midwest Athletic Conference tournament champion Hillsdale and at-large selection Ohio Dominican were tabbed by the national committee for the NCAA Championship Midwest Regional as announced Sunday night.
The committee selected 56 total teams for this year’s championship bracket including 22 automatic qualifiers and 34 at-large selections.
This is the first year the Great Midwest will have more than one program represented in the Midwest Regional. Last year, Kentucky Wesleyan earned the conference’s automatic-qualifying bid.
Hillsdale and Ohio Dominican will be traveling to Springfield, Ill., where the eight teams from the Great Midwest, Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) and Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC)
Illinois Springfield serves as this year’s region host after the Prairie Stars went 45-7 overall during the regular season and conference playoffs.
Hillsdale (26-28 overall) was named as the No. 8 seed and Ohio Dominican (32-15 overall) will start the regional as the No. 4 seed.
Hillsdale’s first-round matchup will be against Illinois Springfield on Thursday, May 17, at 2:30 p.m. ET while ODU, the Great Midwest North Division regular-season champion, drew an opening-round game against Quincy the same day at 11 a.m. ET.
The tournament is a double-elimination format, similar to the setup of the Great Midwest Championship bracket.
Hillsdale is coming off an impressive championship title run in Mason, Ohio, at PRASCO Park that ended on Saturday. The Chargers went 4-1 slotted as the No. 3 seed out of the North Division and toppled Kentucky Wesleyan in seven innings to conclude the tournament with a 15-2 win.
The Chargers went 17-10 in their first year with the league in divisional play under head coach Eric Theisen and the program had three players on the all-conference first team including Jake Hoover, Colin Hites and James Krick.
Ohio Dominican had postseason honors with Great Midwest Player of the Year Justin Childers and Great Midwest Coach of the Year Christopher Antonides. The Panthers’ postseason run was cut short with two tough back-to-back losses in the bracket, but their in-season resume was more than enough to make the field of 56.
Five different players landed on the first-team list with Childers headlining a talented group that also includes Colin Kaucher, Cody Paterniti, Brad Wilson and Joey Machuga. ODU clinched the North with an 18-7 conference record.
The championship provides for two regional sites hosting six teams, four regional sites hosting seven teams and two regional sites hosting eight teams, for a total of eight regional sites. All regionals are double-elimination tournaments and will be played May 17-21. Regional champions will advance to the double-elimination championship finals May 26-June 2 at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina. The finals will be hosted by the University of Mount Olive and the town of Cary, North Carolina.