SPRINGFIELD, Mo. For the 11th time in program history, the Missouri State Bears have been selected to play in the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship. The Bears drew the No. 3 seed in the Oxford (Miss.) Regional as part of the 64-team NCAA field that was announced Monday morning.
Making their third NCAA Tournament appearance in the last four seasons, the Missouri Valley Conference champion Bears (39-15) will face the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles (48-9) in opening-round action at 2 p.m. (CDT) Friday (June 1) at Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field. The top-seeded Ole Miss Rebels and fourth-seeded Saint Louis Billikens will meet Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. in the other regional pairing.
In their last Championship appearance in 2017, the Bears captured their third Regional title by going 3-1 at the Fayetteville (Ark.) Regional. MSU knocked off Oklahoma State in the opening round, before taking two of three games with host Arkansas to win the crown. The Bears then took on perennial power TCU in the Fort Worth Super Regional, falling in two games to the Horned Frogs.
Missouri State was one of two Missouri Valley Conference teams selected for the NCAA Tournament, marking the fourth time in the last seven seasons the league has earned multiple postseason bids. MVC Tournament and regular-season runner-up DBU drew the No. 3 seed in the Fayetteville Regional and will face Southern Miss as its opening-round opponent.
Regional play continues through Monday (June 4) with a double-elimination format. The 16 regional winners will advance to the Super Regional round, which will be contested June 8-11, with the eight winners of the three-game, head-to-head series moving on to the 2018 NCAA Division I Men’s College World Series at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha in Omaha, Neb., June 16-27.
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