INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Eight teams have punched their tickets to Cary, North Carolina and the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship bracket is set. Sixth-year head coach Justin Pettigrew's Central Region Champion Southern Arkansas Muleriders (46-11) will open its first NCAA national tournament run as the No. 3 seed and will face No. 6 Rollins (40-15), the South Region Champion, on Saturday, June 4 at 12:30 p.m. CDT. Live coverage links will be available at www.MuleriderAthletics.com.
 
The Muleriders make their maiden trip to Cary and the program's fourth trip to a national postseason tournament after appearing three times as an NAIA program with World Series berths in 1983, 1987 and 1991. SAU is 3-6 all-time in national tournament games highlighted by the 1987 Muleriders' run to a third-place finish nationally.
 
To say the journey to SAU's first NCAA regional title was a wild ride would be an understatement. The Muleriders, Great American Conference regular season champions, posted a 4-0 record at the league tournament in Hot Springs to capture the program's sixth tournament title and earn the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Central Region Tournament; the program's 14^th NCAA regional berth. Southern Arkansas was selected as the No. 2 seed and hosted NCAA postseason action for the third time in program history (2009, 2018).
 
In the Magnolia sub regional, the Muleriders used a seven-run eighth inning to rally past Washburn 12-11 in the tournament opener, exploded for 28 runs in a dominant offensive performance against Henderson State and the next night against the Reddies, SAU scored one run in the eighth to tie the game at 11 and added an emphatic walk off blast in the ninth to advance to the Central Super Regional.
 
This past weekend, the Muleriders again dabbled with that Magnolia magic as the team's third late inning home run of the postseason sent SAU past Augustana 8-7 in game one of the best-of-3 series. The ride had yet to reach its wildest moment until Saturday when the Muleriders, trailing by five runs entering the top of the ninth inning, manufactured a yet another furious rally plating seven runs with two outs highlighted by the club's fourth go-ahead home run of the postseason to take a 13-11 lead that would hold in the bottom half.
 
Saturday's opening round matchup against Rollins, the first ever contest for the Muleriders in the month of June, will be the second meeting all-time between the two programs with the first coming in 2010 at the NCAA South Region Tournament where Southern Arkansas won 7-1 to advance to the regional championship.
 
The Tars topped Delta State 7-5 in its NCAA postseason opener and then handled Lee twice with wins of 15-1 and 7-3 to advance to the South Super Regional where perennial power Tampa. The Spartans took two of three in the regular season series finale three weeks earlier. However, the Tars claimed a 2-1 win in game one and cruised to a 13-6 win to advance to the DII World Series for the first time since 2004.
 
2022 NCAA DII Baseball Championship
(1) North Greenville (50-10) | Southeast Region Champion
(2) Point Loma (48-8) | West Region Champion
(3) Southern Arkansas (46-11) | Central Region Champion
(4) Southern New Hampshire (46-10) | East Region Champion
(5) Angelo State (50-12) | South Central Region Champion
(6) Rollins (40-15) | South Region Champion
(7) Illinois Springfield (48-9) | Midwest Region Champion
(8) West Chester (34-13) | Atlantic Region Champion
 
More information, including live coverage links, ticketing, merchandise, etc., will be made available by the NCAA and accessible at www.MuleriderAthletics.com.