Baseball Passed Up For NCAA Tournament Bid
QUICK LINK: NCAA Division III Baseball Championship Field
FOREST GROVE – Pacific's incredible storybook championship season will not have another chapter.
As expected, Northwest Conference co-champion Pacific was passed up for one of 16 at-large selections for the NCAA Division III Baseball Tournament. The 56-team tournament field was announced by the Division III Baseball Championships Committee early Monday morning.
Pacific was considered a long shot for gaining one of the Pool C at-large berths. Their chance for selection was hindered by a small number of non-conference games played against other Division III teams, which is a major criteria for the committee. Pacific played the majority of their non-conference games against Division II and NAIA teams.
Only Whitworth, who earned the league's automatic bid to the tournament, will represent the Northwest Conference. The Pirates will play in the McMinnville regional at Linfield's Roy Helser Field, beginning with a Wednesday night contest against SCIAC champion La Verne.
Pacific Lutheran, the third place in the NWC, was also passed up as was Linfield, who had leapfrogged the Boxers to No. 5 in last week's west region rankings after three wins at their own tournament last weekend. Mock selections done Sunday night by D3Baseball.com had projected Linfield to be the last team selected to the field.
The rest of the McMinnville Regional field includes American Southwest Conference champion Concordia (Texas), Trinity (Texas), Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion Coe and Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion St. John's (Minn.).
While being left out of the field was the expected outcome for the Boxers, it is still a disappointing end to a season that saw Pacific win it's first NWC title since 1979. After losing six of their first seven games of the season in a road trip to Division II Hawaii Hilo and Hawaii Pacific, Pacific went on to finish with a 22-15 overall record and tied Whitworth for first with a 19-5 mark, setting a record for conference wins in a season.
In the process, Pacific won all but one NWC series, to Whitworth, which included taking two of three games from then No. 2 ranked Linfield in the conference-opening series in March. Pacific posted a 10-game win streak during March and April, and had consecutive series sweeps of Lewis & Clark, Willamette and Whitman. Pacific earned 10 All-NWC selections, including first team accolades for starting pitcher
Rob Dittrick (Jr., Mililani, Hawaii) and
Jared Van Hoon (Sr., Lake Oswego, Ore.), who was honored as both a relief pitcher and a utility player.
