The Roanoke College Baseball team will be playing in the Danville Regional of the NCAA Division III tournament. The 56 team field was announced late on Sunday evening.
The sixth-seeded Maroons(29-16) will face top-seeded Salisbury on Thursday at 11 am. Game two will feature second-seeded LaGrange College (38-4) and fifth-seeded Otterbein University (31-12). LaGrange won the USA South championship, while Otterbein hoisted the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) trophy. The final first round game pits third-seeded Rowan University (28-16) against fourth-seeded Emory University (27-12). Rowan is an at-large selection, while Emory picked up one of the two Pool B bids.
Roanoke has a school record 29 wins on the season and won its first Old Dominion Athletic Conference title back on May 8 when it topped Washington and Lee, 4-3, to win the first league baseball championship in school history. Salisbury won the Capital Athletic Conference and is currently 31-9 on the season.
Averett University is partnering with the City of Danville and the Danville Braves to host the 2017 NCAA Division III Baseball South Regional in Danville. All games will be played on American Legion Post 325 Field at Dan Daniel Park, home of the Atlanta Braves’ rookie league affiliate. Daily tickets are $10 for adult general admission and $5 for faculty, staff, students, senior citizens and children. Tournament passes are also available at $30 for adults and $15 for faculty, staff, students, senior citizens and children. Kids under 6 receive free admission.
Tickets may be purchased at the D-Braves’ box office (cash only), which will open two hours prior to the start of the first game each day.
The NCAA participants will compete in eight predetermined regionals across the country. Four will be stocked with six teams, while the remaining four will feature eight-team pods. Forty-one schools earned their place via automatic bid from their respective conferences. Two schools — Emory University and Washington University in St. Louis — received Pool B bids as independent programs. The remaining 13 teams are in the field via at-large selection by the NCAA Division III Baseball Committee.
The ODAC’s other representative is Shenandoah (36-8) University. The Hornets head to PeoplesBank Park in York, Pa., for the eight-team Mid-Atlantic Regional, hosted by the Middle Atlantic Conferences. The Hornets, seeded second behind Johns Hopkins University (36-6), will play in game four against seventh-seeded SUNY Maritime (26-11), which won the Skyline Conference title.
Regional play begins on Thursday, May 18 and continues thru Sunday or Monday, May 21/22. The eight winners will travel to Fox Cities Stadium in Appleton, Wis., for the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship on May 26-30/31.
