Cortland Earns 31st Straight NCAA Baseball Berth Red Dragons to Host Four-Team Regional May 17-19 at Wallace Field
Cortland Sports Information Department
The SUNY Cortland baseball team has received a berth into the 60-team NCAA Division III playoffs for the 31st straight season and the 32nd time overall. The Red Dragons will be the second seed and host of a four-team, double-elimination regional Friday through Sunday, May 17-19, at Wallace Field on the Cortland campus.
Top-seeded Salve Regina University (33-8) from Rhode Island will play fourth-seeded Colby College (29-10) from Maine on Friday at 10 a.m., followed by second-seeded Cortland (30-12-1) vs. third-seeded Washington & Jefferson College (32-12) from Pennsylvania at 1:30 p.m. The regional will continue with three games on Saturday, starting at 8:30 a.m., and a championship round of one or two games Sunday beginning at 11 a.m. Ticket prices will be announced.
The winner of the Cortland regional will face the winner of the regional hosted by Babson College (Mass.) in a best-of-three super regional May 24-25, with that winner advancing to the NCAA Division III World Series May 31-June 7 at Classic Auto Group Park in Eastlake, Ohio. The championship will be in Eastlake for the first time.
Cortland, led by 25th-year head coach Joe Brown, earned one of 19 NCAA "Pool C" at-large berths after finishing second with a 2-2 record in the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) tournament this past weekend. The top-seeded Red Dragons lost twice to second-seeded New Paltz in Sunday's championship round.
Cortland's run of 31 straight national tournament appearances (1993-2019, 2021-23, no tourney in 2020) extends its NCAA Division III record. The Red Dragons' streak is the longest active streak on any NCAA level.
Cortland has won 16 regional titles (1995, 1997-2001, 2005, 2007-08, 2010, 2012, 2014-16, 2019, 2021). Of those, 15 sent the Red Dragons to the World Series. In 2019, Cortland hosted and won a four-team regional before losing in a super regional at Babson in the first year the regional/super regional format was employed. In 2021, Cortland won a six-team regional in Auburn, N.Y. to advance to the World Series as the NCAA playoffs featured a reduced field and temporarily reverted back to a regional/World Series format due to COVID-19 concerns. Last year, Cortland finished second in a four-team regional at home.
Cortland won the 2015 national title and finished second in both 2005 and 2010. The Red Dragons have also placed third nationally four times (1997, 1998, 2016, 2021) and fourth twice (2007, 2012) among their 15 World Series trips.
Washington and Jefferson earned an NCAA automatic bid after winning the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) title with a 4-2 win over Grove City on Saturday. The Presidents are making their fifth straight NCAA appearance and 11th overall. W&J finished 1-2 in a regional at Misericordia last spring. In 2017, W&J and Cortland met twice in the championship round of a regional hosted by W&J - Cortland won the first meeting to force a final game, but the Presidents won that contest to advance to the World Series, where they eventually finished as national runner-up. Those two regional games are the only times Cortland and W&J have played.
Salve Regina earned an at-large NCAA bid. The Seahawks tied for first in the regular season in the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) and lost in the conference tournament finals to Babson. Salve Regina is making its fifth straight NCAA showing and ninth overall. The Seahawks, like W&J, competed in a regional at Misericordia last season and finished 2-2, defeating Keystone and Misericordia before losing twice to the hosts on the final day. Cortland and Salve Regina have played once, with Cortland winning, 8-3, in 2009 in Winter Haven, Fla.
Colby is making its first-ever NCAA tournament appearance. The Mules earned an at-large berth into the field; they swept Wesleyan (Conn.) in the quarterfinal series of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) tournament before going 1-2 in the double-elimination portion. Cortland and Colby have never faced each other.
2024 NCAA Division III Baseball Regional - at Wallace Field (Cortland, N.Y.)
Friday, May 17
Game 1: #1 Salve Regina (33-8) vs. #4 Colby (29-10), 10 a.m.
Game 2: #2 Cortland (30-12-1) vs. #3 Washington & Jefferson (31-10), 1:30 p.m.
Saturday, May 18
Game 3: Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser of Game 2, 8:30 a.m.
Game 4: Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner of Game 2, 12 p.m.
Game 5: Winner of Game 3 vs, Loser of Game 4, 3:30 p.m.
Sunday, May 19
Game 6: Winner of Game 4 vs. Winner of Game 5, 11 a.m.
Game 7: Same teams as Game 6, if necessary
