GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- The Tusculum College
baseball team will learn its postseason fate with the announcement
of the 48-team national championship field during the NCAA Division
II Baseball Selection Show, which will air tonight (Sunday) at 10
p.m.
Fans can view the selection show on-line at: http://www.ncaa.com/sports/baseball/d2.
The Pioneers (46-8) know they will be one of the 48 teams vying for this year's national championship, by virtue of winning last month's Food Lion South Atlantic Conference Tournament and earning the league's automatic bid to this week's NCAA Southeast Regional (May 17-20).
The question on the minds of the Pioneer Nation is where will the Southeast Regional be? They hope it will be the familiar confines of the 2,400-seat Pioneer Park on the Tusculum campus.
As of this past Wednesday, Tusculum is listed as the No. 1 team in the NCAA Southeast Regional rankings, which is used for the selection and seeding of the six-team, double elimination regional. Tusculum also climbed the national charts and is listed as the No. 2 team in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper Division II Coaches' Poll, the program's highest national ranking in school history.
Tusculum will be making its sixth NCAA Division II postseason appearance in school history. The Pioneers advanced to the NCAA South Regional four times in 2003 (Lakeland, Fla.), 2005 (Lakeland, Fla.), 2007 (Tampa, Fla.) and 2008 (Tampa, Fla.). TC posted its fifth NCAA appearance in 2009 at the Southeast Regional in Aiken, S.C.
TC's 46 wins are the second most in school history and tied for
the third most in conference history, matching the 46-win campaign
by Wingate in the 1995 season. TC needs one more victory to match
Catawba's 47 wins in 2006 and four more to match the 50-14 slate
posted by the Pioneers in 2007.
Tusculum's .852 won-loss percentage is on-pace to be a new
single-season school and league mark. The school record is .781 by
the 2007 squad, while Catawba's 38-7 record in 1992 was good enough
for a .844 winning percentage.
- NCAA -
