NEWTON, Mass. – The Lasell University baseball team has earned the #3 seed for this week's Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) tournament and will travel to second-seeded Johnson & Wales University this Thursday, May 6, for a semifinal match-up.
The Lasers and Wildcats will meet at 5:00 p.m. Tuesday at the Scotts Miracle-Gro Athletics Complex Baseball Stadium in Providence, R.I. Both teams finished with a 7-5 record in the GNAC this spring as Lasell wrapped up the regular season with an 8-18 overall record under second-year head coach Billy Uberti, while JWU completed a 9-13 overall campaign this spring. Lasell and JWU did not face each other this season.
Thursday's other semifinal game will be top-seeded Anna Maria College (17-8, 9-3) hosting the winner of Tuesday's first-round game between fifth-seeded Norwich (6-2, 4-2) and fourth-seeded Albertus Magnus College (4-13, 3-11). The championship will be a 2-out-of-3 series on Saturday (and possibly Sunday), May 8-9, at the site of the highest remaining seed. The GNAC champion will earn the conference's automatic berth into the NCAA Division III National Championship Tournament.
The GNAC Baseball tournament was limited to five teams in 2021 as four other programs, Colby-Sawyer College, Dean College, Rivier University, and longtime GNAC power Saint Joseph's College of Maine, were forced to opt out of the season due to COVID. This year's tournament is single-elimination until the championship round, compared to the normal six-team format, which features a four-team, double-elimination tournament beginning on Thursday following a single-elimination round on Tuesday.
The Lasers are looking for their first GNAC Championship since joining the conference in 2009. They won at least one game in the tournament every year from 2013-2019 before last year's tournament was canceled due to the pandemic.
Lasell is also seeking its first victory over Johnson & Wales in post-season play, as the Lasers were victims of the Wildcats five previous times, in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2019. JWU won its only GNAC title in 1998, and has finished runner-up six times (1997, 2004, 2006, 2015, 2017, and 2019).
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