IWC Tigers heading to Kingsport, Tennessee for NAIA Opening Round

The Iowa Wesleyan College baseball team has received its regional match-up for the NAIA Baseball National Championships Opening Round and is headed to Kingsport, Tennessee to open its national tourney play.?

The Tigers are the number four seed in the Kingsport Bracket and will open against fifth-seeded Mount Vernon Nazarene (Ohio) University at 10 a.m. Thursday at Hunter Wright Stadium. The five-team regional is hosted by the Appalachian Athletic Conference with the double-elimination tourney running May 12-16.?

IWC is joined in the regional by top seed Union (Ky.) College, second-seeded Faulker (Ala.) University and third-seed Indiana University-Southeast. The winner of each of the nine-team regional brackets will advance to the 55th annual NAIA World Series held May 27-June 3 in Lewiston, Idaho.??Wesleyan (33-18) overall will open against Mount Vernon Nazarene (30-17), champions of the American Mideast Conference. The Cougars tied for first in the AMC regular season and are making their second straight trip to the NAIA National Tournament. Last year MVNU finished 1-2 in the opening round to place fourth in its regional bracket.?

The Tigers have already faced the bracket?s top seed and favorite, Union (45-10), which is ranked eighth nationally. IWC had some success against Union when the two teams played a three-game series in February. The Bulldogs won two of three, but all three games were decided by one run, and Wesleyan defeated Union 1-0 in the series opener on Feb. 19.?

Faulkner finished the regular season with a 45-12 record and is ranked 12th in the final NAIA top 25 poll. Like Union, the Eagles received an at-large bid to the tourney and finished second in the West Division of the Southern States Athletic Conference. Both teams also were eliminated in the same regional bracket last year at Embry-Riddle (Fla.).?

Indiana-Southeast (37-13-1) is the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion and is making its third straight appearance in the opening round. The Grenadiers were ranked 35th in the final NAIA ratings, five spots ahead of Iowa Wesleyan, which finished with nine votes in the final poll. IU-Southeast and Iowa Wesleyan also met earlier this year in NAIA national tourney play in the Division II Men?s Basketball Tournament.