The University of Minnesota Crookston Golden Eagle Baseball team found out tonight that they didn’t make the NCAA Regional tournament that will be held at Central Missouri May 27-30.
Two things worked against UMC getting in the region tournament for the first time in program history. The first was Henderson State, the seventh seed in their conference, winning the tournament and they received an automatic bid taking a spot away. The two other automatic bids came from NSIC conference champion Minnesota State Mankato and Central Missouri (the MIAA tourney champ). The three at-large bids went to Augustana of the NSIC, Arkansas State and Southern Arkansas.
The other thing that went against UMC, was the NCAA is only taking six teams in the region tournament instead of the normal eight. If they would have taken eight teams, we believe UMC would have been in the tournament.
The Central Region seeds –
- Central Missouri (39-6)
- Augustana (36-11)
- Minnesota State Mankato (37-8)
- Arkansas Tech (28-15)
- Southern Arkansas (27-14)
- Henderson State (26-17)
UMC finished the year 26-12 on the year, their best winning percentage in the Division II era. UMC says goodbye to 13 seniors – Landyn Swenson, T.J. Hokanson, Garrett Hohn, Will Zimmerman, Eli Jung, Scott Finberg, Bobby Chu, Brock Reller, Mason Ruhlman, Ben Bryant, Jared Anderson, Gregory Diaz, Jayden Grover. With a COVID year, several of the seniors could possibly play one more year next year, but most will be done with their college career leaving their mark on the Golden Eagle Baseball program.
