WEST CHESTER, Pa.- After a pair of convincing wins to open the NCAA Tournament, No. 11/12 West Chester University baseball team (41-10) finds itself just one win away from a return trip to Super Regionals against the winner of the Millersville pod next weekend with the winner of that weekend advancing to the Division II National Finals in Cary, North Carolina beginning at the end of May. In order to make its first Super Regional appearance since 2022, when West Chester took two of three from East Stroudsburg (37-15)to advance to the National Finals. West Chester will need to take just one game from the Warriors tomorrow afternoon in West Chester to finish off another excellent weekend at Serpico Stadium and return to the Super Regionals.
Fan Information
A Tournament Central page is available
here. Tickets will be sold on-site only, and all sales will be
cashless; however, all major credit cards, as well as Google and Apple Pay, will be accepted. Prices are set at $10 for adults and $5 for students and seniors, plus applicable fees. No comp tickets will be available.
Broadcast Information
Tomorrow's game will once be broadcast on
NCAA Champs Pass. Search for "NCAA Champs Pass" in the app stores on Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku and Android TV devices.
Tomorrow's Slate
West Chester will serve as the visiting team on the scoreboard tomorrow for the first game of the day against East Stroudsburg, as the top-seeded Golden Rams have had home team rights (batting in the home half of innings) throughout the weekend up until this point. This first game will begin at 11 a.m. at Serpico Stadium with the if-necessary game to follow should East Stroudsburg successfully rebound from a 22-7 loss to the Golden Rams in West Chester earlier today.
Not Since…
West Chester picked up its first NCAA Tournament win since 2023 earlier this week with a 15-4 win over Bloomsburg and is now 2-0 in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017, when the team won its second National Championship in Grand Prairie, Texas over UC San Diego by a 9-0 final.
Prior to 2017, the last time West Chester started the Regional Tournament a perfect 2-0 was in 2012, when the team defeated Shepherd, Mercyhurst, Seton Hill, and Kutztown in a 4-0 run to the Division II National Finals in Cary, North Carolina, where the Golden Rams won their first National Championship by a 9-0 final over Delta State.
With these two victories, West Chester is now 51-40 in NCAA Tournament games and 10-10 under head coach
Mike LaRosa, with the team's best run being a 7-4 effort in the 2022 NCAA Tournament, which saw the Golden Rams advance to the National Semifinals against eventual National Champion, North Greenville.
Record Check
West Chester scored its 22 runs earlier today by scoring in seven of eight innings, including a five-run first and a six-run third to erase an early four-run deficit. With this latest outburst, which is the second-best offensive performance this season, trailing only a 24-4 rout of Shepherd, West Chester has scored 426 runs so far this season, which is fourth-best in team history and is the most since the team scored 414 runs in 2022, which included the teams last trip to Cary, North Carolina. West Chester hit its first two home runs of the 2026 postseason today in the victory over East Stroudsburg and now hit 52 this season, which is tied for fourth in single-season history (2021) and just one shy of matching the 53 the 2022 team hit.
West Chester is also just two wins shy of moving into a tie for fifth in single-season wins in program history, matching the 43 wins the 2024 squad picked up, including a PSAC Tournament title.
Individually,
Julian Costa (Mantua, N.J./Clearview) earned his 11
th victory of the season on Thursday and moved into a tie with Fred Breidenbach (2010) atop the career list. West Chester was able to limit Costa's pitches in Thursday's victory after an 11-run fourth inning, meaning the senior could be available to return to the mound on Saturday if called upon.
The Other Half
Millersville is in a similar situation to West Chester entering play on Saturday, in need of just one win over Seton Hill in a potential two-game max to punch its ticket back to the Super Regionals once again in 2026. Millersville is on a six-game winning streak after being swept by West Chester in West Chester to finish the regular season, including a 2-1 victory over the Golden Rams in the PSAC Championship game last weekend at Slippery Rock before back-to-back 8-4 victories over Charleston and Seton Hill to open the NCAA Tournament this weekend at home.
