Baseball No. 5 Seed in NAIA Opening Round
05.08.2009
The Taylor University baseball team will travel to Berry College in Rome, Ga., for the NAIA National Championship Opening Round, May 12-15.
Taylor was selected as the No. 5 seed in the five-team double elimination tournament. The Trojans will open the tournament against No. 4 seed, The Master's College (Calif.), at Noon on Tuesday, May 12. The Mustangs finished the year 36-20 and advanced to the postseason after finishing as runner-up in the Golden State Athletic Conference Tournament.
Hosted by the Southern States Athletic Conference, the tournament's top three seeds are No. 1 Berry (Ga.), No. 2 Malone (Ohio), and No. 3 St. Xavier (Ill.).
Berry's William R. Bowdoin Field will not be unfamiliar territory for the Trojans. In a spring break trip on March 22-23 of this season, Taylor won two out of three games against the Vikings, who were ranked No. 12 in the NAIA at the time.
With a school record mark of 36-17, Taylor captured the 2009 Mid-Central College Conference Tournament Championship earlier this week with a 13-4 victory over Bethel College in the championship game. The Trojans tied for third in the MCC final regular season standings with a 16-8 record.
Tickets to each one-day session (up to three games per-day) are $10 and will be sold only at the field the day of the game. Tickets will be made available for sale one hour before the start of the first game of the day.
The winners of the nine Opening Round tournaments, in addition to host school Lewis-Clark State (Idaho), will meet at the final site for the 53rd Annual Avista-NAIA World Series on May 22-29 in Lewiston, Idaho.