May 12, 2009

Garden City, N.Y. - The Franklin Pierce University baseball team has been named second seed and host of the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship East Regional, as announced Sunday night by the NCAA. The six-team, double-elimination regional will be held Thursday, May 14 through Sunday, May 17 at Franklin Pierce's Dr. Arthur and Martha Pappas Field. The Panthers earned the third seed in the regional and will begin play at 6pm on Thursday, May 14 against Dowling.

The East Regional will open at 11 a.m. on Thursday when top-seeded Dominican faces sixth-seeded Wilmington. The late game of the first day will be between third-seeded Adelphi and fourth-seeded Dowling at 6 p.m. In an interesting twist of fate, all three first-day matchups at the East Regional will be rematches of the respective conference tournament finals.

Friday will see games at 11 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. as well, with play opening in the morning with an elimination game between the losers of Thursday's first two games. At 2:30 on Friday afternoon, the winner of Thursday's first game will meet the loser of its third. Friday's nightcap will feature a winners' bracket game between the winners of Thursday's second and third games.

From there, the matchups will vary, depending on how many teams have been eliminated at different stages of the regional. Three games will be played on Saturday, with start times slated for 3 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. In the event of weather delays, no game will be started later than 11 p.m. on Saturday.

The final day of play is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday, with another game to follow at 5:30 p.m. if necessary.

All games throughout the regional will be broadcast on WFPC-LP 105.3 FM and streamed online at http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu.

Franklin Pierce (37-16) received an automatic bid to the regional after taking home the Northeast-10 Conference Championship on Sunday. It is the fifth consecutive trip to the NCAA Championship for the Ravens, as well as the sixth appearance in the last seven years. Assumption (32-19-1) picked up the only at-large bid for the Northeast-10 after finishing second in the conference during the regular season and placing as the runner-up to Franklin Pierce in the conference championship.

Dominican (37-12) will play as the top seed in the East Regional after winning the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference regular season championship by seven games and finishing as the runner-up in the conference tournament. Wilmington (27-27) upset Dominican to claim the CACC Championship to earn the conference's automatic bid and will travel to Rindge as the sixth seed.

Adelphi (31-14) picked up the third seed after earning an automatic bid by taking home the East Coast Conference Championship. The Panthers were also the ECC's regular season champion. Dowling (30-15) will play next weekend as the fourth seed after finishing third in the ECC during the regular season and falling to Adelphi in the final round of the conference championship.

The winner of the East Regional will advance, along with winners from the nation's seven other regions, to the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship Finals, to be held on May 23-30 at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, N.C. The 2009 season marks the 42nd annual NCAA Division II Baseball Championship, and the first year the finals will be held in Cary.