BABSON PARK, Fla. (May 10, 2018) – The 2018 Sun Conference Tournament Champion Webber International University baseball team is headed to the NAIA National Championship Opening Round for the second straight season and for the second time in program history. This time around, the Warriors were placed in the Montgomery bracket as the No. 2 seed, and will square off against No. 3 seed Indiana Tech at 3 p.m. on Monday, May 14, at Harrison Field in Montgomery, Alabama.

On Thursday, May 10, The WIU baseball team gathered in the Yentes Center to watch highlights from the squad's tournament championship and to find out which opening round pairing the Warriors would be sent to via the NAIA National Championship Selection show.

The seeding for the Montgomery bracket, hosted by the No. 1 team in all of the NAIA, Faulkner University, is as follows:
1. Faulkner (Ala.) (50-7)
2. Webber International (Fla.) (35-22)
3. Indiana Tech (42-19)
4. Talladega (Ala.) (27-22)
5. LSU Alexandria (La.) (32-25)

The 45-team and 10th annual NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round will take place from Monday, May 14, to Thursday, May 17, and features nine, five-team double elimination tournaments.

No. 2 seeded Webber will face off in the two-game elimination style tournament, starting against No. 3 seeded Indiana Tech, which enters the Opening Round for the eighth time in its history after winning the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference Regular Season crown. The Warriors of Indiana Tech yield an all-time record of 12-14 in NAIA National Tournament action.

Webber, which is still receiving votes in the NAIA Baseball Coaches' Top 25 Poll as it has all season long, was one of four teams in The Sun Conference to receive an invite to the National Championship Opening Round. No. 3 Saint Thomas University and No. 4 Southeastern University, which have both fell to the Warriors twice this season, were both seeded No. 1 in their respective brackets while No. 15 Keiser University earned the No. 3 seed in the Lawrenceville bracket, the same bracket Webber competed in a year ago.

In 2017, Webber was again the No 2 seed in its bracket, and kicked off its first-ever trip to the National Championship with a two-hit, 3-0 shutout victory over third-seeded Central Methodist University before ultimately falling in its final two games of the season, dropping a 14-12 high scoring affair against The Master's University and a close one-run 7-6 decision against top-seeded Georgia Gwinnett College.

Similarly to the Webber's 1-0 win over Saint Thomas in this season's Sun Conference Tournament Championship game, the Warriors' 3-0 win over the No. 3 seed in their opening round bracket a year ago featured a two-hit shutout by Juan Terron.

The Warriors have already defeated the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 teams in the NAIA in 2018, and will likely need to add a victory over the No. 1 team in the country to that list to reach the NAIA World Series.

Should the Warriors advance out of their bracket and become one of the nine opening round champions, they will proceed to the Avista-NAIA Baseball World Series in Lewiston, Idaho, from Friday, May 25, until Friday, June 1. It will be the 19th consecutive season and 27th time overall the World Series will take place at Harris Field on the campus of Lewis–Clark State College.
 
TOURNAMENT LINKS:
Montgomery Bracket
Tournament Page
Stats
Live Streaming