Baseball
01/28/2009 -
MOC And Town Of Cary To Host 2009, 2010 NCAA II Baseball National Championships
Cary, N.C., will be the site and Mount Olive College will partner with Town of Cary as hosts for the National Finals of the 2009 and 2010 NCAA Division II Baseball National Championship, it was announced by the NCAA. This year’s National Finals take place May 23-30. Mount Olive won the 2008 NCAA Division II Baseball National Championship.
The National Finals will take place at the USA Baseball Training Complex in Western Cary. The Town of Cary was selected as the home of USA Baseball in 2002. The complex served as the home field for University of North Carolina during the 2008 season.
Cary, N.C., will be the site and Mount Olive College will partner with Town of Cary as hosts for the National Finals of the 2009 and 2010 NCAA Division II Baseball National Championship, it was announced by the NCAA. This year’s National Finals take place May 23-30. Mount Olive won the 2008 NCAA Division II Baseball National Championship.
Cary is one of six cities nationwide that has been designated as a “Championship City” by the NCAA. Cary joins Cleveland, Ohio; Indianapolis, Ind.; St. Louis, Mo.; San Antonio, Texas; and San Diego, Calif. Cary has hosted numerous NCAA national championships, most recently the 2008 Division I Women’s Soccer College Cup in December.
“We’re very excited to be partnering with the Town of Cary to host the NCAA Division II baseball championship for the next two years,” said Mount Olive College Director of Athletics Jeff Eisen. “This is a great opportunity to maintain the high level of visibility that Mount Olive College and our baseball program achieved from winning last year’s baseball championship, while being supportive of Division II’s goal of providing quality championship experiences for its student-athletes.”
Mount Olive becomes the first member of Conference Carolinas to be the host school for the National Finals of an NCAA Championship. Mount Olive has played host to the NCAA Division II Baseball South Atlantic Regional in each of the last two years. The 2007 regional took place in Kinston, N.C., while last year’s regional was held at Scarborough Field on the campus of Mount Olive College.
After a runner-up finish in the 2007 regional, Mount Olive won the 2008 regional and made its first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division II Baseball National Finals. The Trojans won all four games for the first national championship in school history in any sport. Mount Olive posted a 58-6 record last season and is ranked No. 1 in the 2009 ABCA Division II Baseball Preseason National Poll.
Cary becomes the sixth city to host the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship, dating back to 1968. Springfield, Mo., hosted the first four national championships, followed by an eight-year run in Springfield, Ill, and five years in Riverside, Calif. The national championship moved to Montgomery, Ala., in 1985 and stayed there through 2007. Mount Olive won the 2008 national title in Sauget, Ill., just east of St. Louis, Mo.
The NCAA II Baseball Championship is a 48-team tournament, comprised of six teams in eight regions. The eight regional winners will advance to the National Finals in Cary.
At more than 130,000 people, Cary is a thriving community in the heart of central North Carolina and has been praised for its high quality of life by MONEY Magazine, Forbes and Frommer’s. Often referred to as North Carolina’s Technology Town, Cary is served by an award-winning Town government of 1,100 professionals who focus every day on enriching the lives of their citizens by creating an exceptional environment and providing exemplary services that enable their community to thrive and prosper. The Town of Cary website is located at www.townofcary.org.
