W&J to host DIII Mideast Baseball Regional 5/11/2015 4:44:35 PM NCAA Division III Baseball Championship release (NCAA) NCAA Division III Regional bracket (printable) NCAA Division III Regional announcement (NCAA) NCAA Division III Mideast Regional site/tournament schedule (W&J) INDIANAPOLIS (pacathletics.org) – On Monday, the NCAA Division III Baseball Committee released the 56 teams that will compete in the 2015 NCAA Division III Baseball Championship and 2015 Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) champion Washington & Jefferson College was announced as the host of this week's Mideast Regional. The Presidents (28-15) and 13th-year head coach Jeff Mountain claimed the league’s automatic bid to the Division III Championship after securing the program’s 10th PAC title Saturday with a 17-5 win over Thomas More College in Crestview Hills, Kentucky. The Mideast Regional features three teams ranked among the nation’s top Division III programs, led by No. 2 Frostburg State University. Heidelberg University and Shenandoah University will represent the region as well, ranked 9th and 10th, respectively. Also competing in the Mideast regional will be Adrian College and LaRoche College, which are both receiving votes in the Top 25. W&J was selected as one of eight regional site hosts, which will crown regional champions during the four-day tournaments May 13-16. The winner from each regional site will advance to the Division III College World Series to be held May 22-26 at Fox Cities Stadium in Appleton, Wisconsin. Sixth-seeded W&J will open regional action on Wednesday, May 13 against top-seeded Frostburg State at 12 p.m. Six teams will compete at four regional sites and eight teams will compete at four regional sites. All regionals will use a double-elimination format. Forty conference champions qualified automatically. Completed in 2004, W&J’s Ross Memorial Park joins with Alexandre Stadium to form a 233,000-square foot continuous turf playing surface, which was the largest of its kind at the time. Recent renovations replaced the infield turf and base cutouts with artificial turf, leaving just the pitchers' mound and home plate area as dirt, helping to minimize weather delays. Over the winter, the press box was renovated, more than doubling its previous capacity. Wireless internet access was also installed. The facility contains 400 chair-back seats in addition to a two-tiered press box, an inning-by-inning scoreboard and restrooms. Also located at the site is the Ross Locker Room facility which houses three full-sized locker rooms, an athletic training room, officials' locker room and an equipment and laundry room. The stadium was dedicated on April 19, 2008 in honor of James David Ross, who served as manager of the Lower Burrell American Legion for 22 years. Ross amassed over 600 victories in his career and led the Lower Burrell program to 17 league championships and eight Westmoreland County titles. His teams averaged over 27 wins per season. Thanks to a generous gift from the Ross family, Ross Memorial Park is one of the premiere facilities in small-college baseball.