Baseball Bracket

The Salem State Vikings earned the top seed in the 2016 Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament which will start on Thursday with the first round of play. 

Joining the Vikings with a first round bye in second seed Massachusetts Maritime. Third seed Fitchburg State will face sixth seed Framingham State on Thursday at 3 pm while fourth seed Westfield State will host fifth seed Bridgewater State also at 3. The winner of Fitchburg State/Framingham State will play Massachusetts Maritime on Friday at 3 and the winner of Westfield State/Bridgewater State will face Salem State at 3 in the quarterfinals which then becomes double elimination. 

Play continues Saturday at top seed Salem State at 9:30 am then finishes Sunday with the championship game at 12 pm Sunday with the winner advancing to the NCAA Division III Tournament.

Earning the top seed in the tournament and the regular season title, Salem State finished the regular season 12-2 in league play. Led by pitcher Sean Buckland, he tallied a MASCAC best seven wins, fourth most strikeouts at 49 and fifth best ERA at 2.85. Teammate Mike David led the conference in doubles (17), home runs (10), hits (49), runs scored (36) and second in RBI (29).

Landing the second seed with an 11-3 MASCAC record is Massachusetts Maritime. Leading the way for the Buccaneers is reigning MASCAC Player and Rookie of the Year Logan Sullo. He closed out the regular season first in batting average (.429), on-base percentage (.531) and slugging percentage (.735). On the mound, Daniel Avery tallied the third most strikeouts (51) and tied for second with most wins in the conference (5).

Fitchburg State is in the third seed with a 10-4 record in league action. Nathan Littman led the Falcons in batting average at .382 while also netting eight doubles, 24 RBI and 15 walks. Pitcher Tommy Parsons ended the regular season tied for second second in wins (5) and second in total strikeouts (60) and finished with a 3.78 ERA.

Grabbing the fourth seed with an 8-6 record is Westfield State. Danny Dimatteo closed out the season with a .374 batting average, eight doubles, four triples, 12 RBI and third best slugging percentage in the league at .539. 

Finishing out the tournament field in fifth and sixth is Bridgewater State and Framingham State, respectively. The Bears ended the regular season at 7-7 in MASCAC action. Ryan Feeney was fourth in batting average (.376) with 12 doubles, 16 RBI, 47 hits and 23 runs scored at the conclusion of his first season with the Bears. For the Rams, who finished with five league wins, reigning MASCAC Pitcher of the Year Zack Kirby led the conference in total strikeouts (69) over most innings pitched (54.1) while netting the most strikeouts per game (11.43) and a 4.97 ERA over the course of the regular season.

During last year's tournament, second seed Salem State won the MASCAC tournament title in after beating third seed Worcester State in the second title game 6-5 to advance to the NCAA Tournament.