Bracket Announced For The 2008 Horizon League Baseball Championship Presented By U.S. Army
May 17, 2008
Bracket
INDIANAPOLIS --- Regular-season titlist and defending champion University of Illinois at Chicago is the top seed in the 2008 Horizon League Baseball Championship presented by U.S. Army, which begins Tuesday, the League office announced Saturday (May 17). The championship will be played at Eastwood Field in Niles, Ohio, with Youngstown State University as host.
UIC (31-19, 17-6 Horizon League) claimed its seventh consecutive regular-season title in dramatic fashion Saturday evening, scoring two runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning to edge Valparaiso University 7-6 in the second game of a doubleheader. The Flames' seventh straight victory gave them the League title by a half-game over Wright State University (16-6) and capped a week in which they needed to win their final five League games to overtake the Raiders, who completed their conference schedule last Saturday.
Wright State, which was bidding for its first regular-season title since 1997, is the number-two seed. The Raiders are 28-20 overall with non-conference games remaining Saturday night and Sunday afternoon against New Jersey Institute of Technology.
The UIC-Valpo doubleheader capped an exciting weekend in which none of the top six seeds were determined heading into Friday's games and only three were set heading into the second game of the twinbill.
Butler University (13-33, 7-17), the only team that knew its seed heading into the final weekend, is the seventh seed and will play sixth-seed Valparaiso (18-33, 8-13) in the single-elimination championship opener Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET. The Crusaders will be making their first appearance in the Horizon League Championship after more than two decades in the Mid-Continent Conference.
Wednesday's action begins with fourth-seed Cleveland State University (21-29, 10-13) facing fifth-seed University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (21-34, 11-15) at 11 a.m., followed by third-seed and host Youngstown State (23-31, 13-12) against the winner of Tuesday's first-round game at 3 p.m. Youngstown State won the championship as the seventh seed the last time its was held at Eastwood Field in 2004.
The top two seeds receive byes until Thursday when Wright State plays the higher winning seed from Wednesday at 3 p.m. and UIC meets the lower-seeded of the two winners at 7 p.m. Thursday's first game features the two losing teams from Wednesday's games.
The championship continues with games Friday at 11 a.m. and 3 and 7 p.m. and Saturday at 11 a.m. The championship game is scheduled for Saturday at 3 p.m. If the undefeated team loses that game, a second winner-take-all championship will be played Sunday at 11 a.m. The tournament champion receives the Horizon League's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
A tournament bracket for the Horizon League Baseball Championship presented by the U.S. Army can be found on the second page of this release.
