Cortland leads upstate New York baseball teams in D-III field

The NCAA released the Division III baseball tournament brackets Monday afternoon, and four upstate New York teams are in regional play.

Cortland, Ithaca, SUNY New Paltz and St. John Fisher will start double-elimination regional series Friday.

Cortland (30-12-1) earned host duties for a regional, and will take on Washington & Jefferson (Pa.) on Friday morning. Salve Regina is the top seed in the region, and will play Colby. The Red Dragons were runner-up in the SUNYAC tournament, falling twice to New Paltz on Sunday.

Ithaca (31-9) plays Lynchburg (Va.) to open the Cleveland region Friday morning. Host Case Western Reserve and Alvernia are the other two teams in the regional. Now three-time defending Liberty League champion, Ithaca won its most recent conference tournament title Saturday at RPI with a walk-off win over Rochester.

Coming off its SUNYAC tournament championship, New Paltz (29-13) is headed to Baltimore to open regional play against Arcadia (Pa.) on Friday. Regional host and defending national runner-up Johns Hopkins will meet St. Joseph’s of Long Island in the other game in that region.

St. John Fisher (26-17) will head to Dallas, Pa., and face top regional seed and host Misericordia on Friday afternoon. The winner meets either Middlebury or Keystone in the winner’s bracket.