TYLER, TX- The Millsaps Majors (28-12) were selected to compete in the 2015 NCAA Tournament's West Regional Sunday night, and will travel to the University of Texas-Tyler for the six-team double-elimination tournament.
Millsaps will compete against: the La Verne Leopards (24-18, SCIAC champions), the Linfield Wildcats (30-13, at-large), the Texas-Tyler Patriots (34-10, ASC champions), the Trinity (TX) Tigers (33-12, SCAC champions), and the Whitworth Pirates (28-13, NWC champions). The double-elimination tournament will start Wednesday and run through the weekend. The Majors will open up with the Whitworth Pirates at 630PM on Wedneday.
Texas-Tyler won both the regular season and postseason tournament titles in the American Southwest Conference. The Patriots are the No. 2 team in the West Region poll and ranked No. 24 nationally by D3baseball.com.
Linfield tied with Whitworth for second place in the regular season Northwest Conference standings but went 1-2 at the inaugural NWC Tournament before receiving an at-large bid to the national tournament. The Wildcats are ranked third in the region and No. 19 nationally by D3baseball.com.
Whitworth came into the Northwest Conference tournament as the three-seed. The Pirates no-hit Linfield before defeating Pacific Lutheran twice to claim the title and the automatic bid. The Pirates were most recently ranked sixth in the West Region and were receiving 31 votes (compared to the Majors' 33) in the latest d3baseball top-25 poll.
Trinity earned an automatic berth to the tournament after coming through the loser's bracket to win the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament title as the tournament's third-seeded team. The Tigers are ranked No. 18 nationally by D3baseball.com
La Verne won the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament to gain an automatic berth to the national tournament. The Leopards entered the conference tournament seeded fourth and went 3-1 to capture the title.
The Majors were squarely on the bubble of the 56 team tournament, but the committee looked at Millsaps' strong schedule and overall record and granted them one of the 14 at-large bids. Millsaps joins fellow Southern Athletic Association teams Birmingham-Southern and Rhodes in the tourney, both BSC and Rhodes will compete in the South Region tournament in Demorest, Georgia. Should the Majors advance out of the West Regional, they would face the South Region champion in their first game of the College World Series.
This is the second regional appearance for the Majors in three years. Millsaps won the 2013 South Regional after defeating Salisbury 7-6 and punching a ticket to the College World Series.
We will have complete coverage of the tournament, live stats and video are available through the UT-Tyler Tournament page. A complete schedule of the West and the other seven regionals is available through the NCAA.
