GEORGIA STATE, GEORGE MASON EARN NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP BERTHS
CAA champion Georgia State and regular-season champ George Mason each received berths in the NCAA Baseball Championship on Monday. It's the ninth time in the past 12 years that at least two CAA teams have made the event.
Making its first trip to an NCAA Regional, Georgia
State will stay close to home and play at Georgia Tech as part of
the Atlanta Regional beginning Friday. The Yellow Jackets will host as the top
seed, while Elon and Southern Miss round out the four-team, double-elimination
bracket. The fourth-seeded Panthers will play Georgia Tech at 7
p.m. on Friday night at Russ Chandler Stadium.
The Panthers (39-20) earned an automatic NCAA berth, the
first in school history, by winning the CAA
championship with four straight victories. Georgia State has already posted a
school-record victory total and enters NCAA play with an eight-game winning
streak, equaling a school record. The Panthers have won 13 of their last 15
games.
“We feel great that we played baseball at a high level to
win our conference championship and qualify for the NCAA Tournament.” It’s a
most wonderful time to be at Georgia State University. There is so much
excitement and enthusiasm about about our University and our athletic
department, and it feels great to be a big part of that.”
Georgia State is one of five teams making its first
appearance in the tournament. The Panthers split with the Yellow Jackets this season
and have won at Russ Chandler Stadium two times in the last three years. State
earned a 10-1 win against No. 3 Georgia Tech back in March, the
highest ranked opponent that the Panthers have ever defeated.
Junior Bradley Logan, who earned CAA Most Outstanding
Player honors at last week’s CAA Championship after hitting four home runs in
four games, leads the veteran laden team. A total of 11 seniors round out the
roster, led by senior catcher Marc Mimeault who led the Panthers with a .394 batting average and 14 home runs.
George Mason earned an at-large berth and will play
South Carolina on Friday in an opening round contest. The Patriots, a
third seed in the Greenville, N.C. Regional, will play the
second-seeded Gamecocks at 3 p.m. East Carolina is the host institution
and the No. 1 seed in the regional while Binghamton is the fourth-seed.
The Patriots will be making their sixth NCAA
Tournament appearance. They went to the tournament in 1985, 1988, 1992,
1993 and most recently in 2004. Mason is 1-10 all-time in the NCAA
Tournament. In 1985, Mason played in Tallahassee, Fla. and lost to Florida
State and Arkansas. In 1988, the Patriots played in Tallahassee, Fla.
again this time losing to Florida and Stetson. In 1992, Mason traveled
to Gainesville, Fla. and broke through for the first time in the
tournament, beating Rider but falling to Georgia Tech and California.
In 1993, Mason traveled to Tempe, Ariz. and lost to Arizona State and
St. John's. In 2004, the Patriots were close to home, playing in
Charlottesville and losing to Vanderbilt and Virginia.
At 42-12, Mason has set a school record for wins and winning
percentage. After leading the nation in winning percentage for most of
the season, the Patriots currently find themselves second in the nation
in that category trailing only Arizona State, which is 44-12. Only
seven schools in the country have won more than Mason's 42 games.
The Patriots are 0-6 all-time against South Carolina with the
last meeting coming in 2004 at Columbia, S.C., a 5-0 loss. Mason is
30-43 all-time against East Carolina but the teams have not met since
ECU left the CAA after the 2001 season. The Patriots and Binghamton
have never met.