Bracket
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – For the fourth time in its storied history – and really the fourth time since 2006 – West Chester University's baseball team finds itself with an opportunity to win the NCAA Division II National Championship.
Fans can catch all the action live on NCAA.com. The NCAA will be video streaming all the action live from Grand Prairie, Texas with Lincoln Rose and Joe Castellano bringing you the color and play-by-play. Live video link is
HERE, while live stats link is located
HERE.
Tournament Central Page with all the information, including tickets should you decide to make the journey, can be found
HERE.
West Chester (40-11) battles North Georgia (46-10) at 4 p.m. EST at The Ballpark at Grand Prairie, or AirHogs Stadium, in the first game of the 2017 NCAA DII national finals. The Golden Rams are ranked sixth in the country by Collegiatebaseball.com and 14th by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers' Association (NCBWA) while North Georgia is No. 3 and 9, respectively, in those polls.
None of that matters now, however. What matters now are wins. The winner of this eight-team, double-elimination tournament will be crowned national champion on June 4. The last time West Chester was here, it was the Golden Rams, who wore that crown home proudly.
Sixth-year head coach Jad Prachniak won his 200th career game in a Golden Rams' uniform when West Chester beat Winston-Salem State to claim the Atlantic Region title. He leads his charges back to the national finals for the second time, after winning the championship in 2012.
Your guess is as good as mine as to the last time West Chester played a baseball game in The Lone Star State. Maybe Saturday will be the first. What is known is that Prachniak is no stranger to deep postseason runs, and he has a squad with him in Texas that doesn't get rattled easily. The Golden Rams are 8-5 this spring in 1-run games, and 4-0 in extra innings contests. They are 2-1 against teams ranked among the Top 3 in the country, and they are 6-3 against nationally ranked opponents in general.
The only familiar opponent in Texas is East Region champion St. Thomas Aquinas College (STAC). West Chester beat them, 3-0, on the road in Nyack, NY earlier this season. But, a potential rematch of the 2012 National Championship game looms in the second round as Delta State (Miss.) has been placed in West Chester's bracket. The Golden Rams beat the Statesmen, 9-0, in 2012 to claim the program's only national title to date.
The only other potential opponent in the bracket is UC San Diego, which eliminated West Chester from the 2009 national finals with an 8-6 decision in Cary, NC.
