WEST BABYLON, N.Y. – The East Coast Conference has announced the bracket for the 2024 ECC Baseball Championship, and D’Youville, Molloy, Queens, and St. Thomas Aquinas will all compete for an ECC title and an automatic bid into the NCAA Baseball Championship. Mitchel Field in Uniondale, N.Y., the home field of Molloy, will play host to the tournament that will run from Thursday, May 9 through Saturday, May 11.
No. 1 D’Youville and No. 2 Molloy shared the ECC Regular-Season Championship after finishing with identical 18-6 conference records.
In their first season eligible for the postseason, the Saints earned the top seed over the Lions. The teams split their regular season-series with two wins each, and after the head-to-head tiebreaker, the next criteria was the team's record against the next highest-seeded team. D'Youville had a 3-1 record over Queens where the Lions split their regular season series.
"Becoming regular-season champions in our first season eligible is amazing," said D’Youville head coach Kyle McLain. "It has been years in the making. All these guys we recruited two, three, four years ago, our number one message to them was to compete for regular and postseason titles year one of being eligible at the NCAA Division II level . . . Our student-athletes have put in the work for a long time, and it's really special to see this group reach one of our goals."
No. 1 D’Youville (29-18) will face No. 4 St. Thomas Aquinas (23-25, 14-10 ECC) in Game 2 on Thursday afternoon. The Spartans continue to be a tournament mainstay with their 15th appearance over the last 16 seasons. STAC has won four ECC titles in that span but is in search of its first since the 2018 season.
No. 2 Molloy has appeared in the ECC final five times in the last six seasons and won back-to-back ECC titles in 2021 and 2022.
The Lions will face No. 3 Queens in Game 1 on Thursday afternoon. The defending-champion Knights won their second ECC title in program history, and first since 1998, last season and hold the longest streak of consecutive ECC Championship berths after earning their fifth straight.
The championship will begin with the Queens vs. Molloy matchup at 12:00 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. St. Thomas Aquinas and D’Youville will follow at 3:00 p.m.
All games during the championship will be broadcast live on the ECC Network website and the ECC Network app on Apple and Android mobile devices and on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, and Roku streaming devices.
To read Twitter updates throughout the tournament, follow @ECCSports. Tournament recaps, live stats, box scores and all other pertinent tournament information will also be available at the championship central website (link below).
2024 East Coast Conference Baseball Championship
Thursday, May 9 at Mitchel Field Athletic Complex - Uniondale, N.Y.
Game 1 - 12:00 p.m. - No. 3 Queens vs. No. 2 Molloy
Game 2 - 3:00 p.m. - No. 4 St. Thomas Aquinas vs. No. 1 D'Youville
Friday, May 10 at Mitchel Field Athletic Complex - Uniondale, N.Y.
Game 3 - 10:00 a.m. - Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2
Game 4 - 1:00 p.m. - Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2
Game 5 - 4:00 p.m. - Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4
Saturday, May 11 at Mitchel Field Athletic Complex - Uniondale, N.Y.
Game 6 - 12:00 p.m. - Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5
Game 7 (If necessary) - Game 6 Participants (If winner of Game 5 wins Game 6)
Game would begin 30 minutes after completion of Game 6