INDIANAPOLIS -- The No. 14 University of North Georgia has been selected to the 2015 NCAA Division II Baseball Tournament. The Nighthawks will be the third-seed in the Southeast Regional hosted by top-seeded Catawba College at Finch Field in Thomasville, North Carolina. All six teams will begin play with the opening round this Thursday, May 14.
North Georgia will meet fourth-seed Georgia College in the opening round. The Bobcats earned the Peach Belt's automatic qualifier after winning the conference tournament earlier today. Also competing in the Southeast Regional are No. 2-seed Mount Olive, regular season champions of the Conference Carolinas, and No. 5-seed Wingate, who earned an automatic bid by winning the South Atlantic Conference Tournament. The Nighthawk will face one of the two teams in the second round of the tournament.
Rounding out the field are the top-seeded Catawba Indians, who won the SAC regular season title, and the sixth-seeded North Greenville Crusaders, winners of the Conference Carolinas Tournament. Those two teams will meet in the final game of the first round.
This year's Southeast Region field is made up of the three regular season conference champions from the region in Catawba, Mount Olive and North Georgia. Georgia College, Wingate and North Greenville all served as bracket-busters winning their league's automatic bid by upsetting their respective conference tournaments. All three teams were not in the last region rankings released by the NCAA.
UNG is making just its second trip to the NCAA Tournament with the only other appearance coming in 2008 when the team made the NCAA South Atlantic Regional after winning the PBC Tournament Championship in the school's first eligible year of NCAA postseason play. This marks the first at-large selection for the program.
2015 NCAA DII Southeast Regional
No. 1 - Catawba (40-13) SAC Regular Season Champ
No. 2 - Mount Olive (37-14) CC Regular Season Champ
No. 3 - North Georgia (35-15) PBC Regular Season Champ
No. 4 - Georgia College (33-17) PBC Tournament Champs
No. 5 - Wingate (32-21) SAC Tournament Champs
No. 6 - North Greenville (29-13) CC Tournament Champs
