The NCAA Division I Baseball Committee announced 16 regional sites for the 75th annual NCAA Division I Baseball Championship Sunday evening, and for the fifth time in facility history, East Carolina University's Clark-LeClair Stadium will serve as a site for the opening round of The Road To Omaha.
Competition for the Greenville Regional will get underway on Friday, June 3 with a pair of games. The other three teams who will make up the bracket will be announced Monday at 12 noon on ESPNU as part of the release of the entire 2022 NCAA Baseball Championship field.
Tickets for the Greenville Regional are currently on sale via ECUPirates.com through the ECU Athletics Ticket Office for Pirate Club members and season ticket holders only.
Beginning at 9:00 a.m. Wednesday, sales will be open for the general public. All-session ticket tickets are available for $90, $72 and $60 depending on seat locations, while tickets for single sessions (games) - priced at $15, $12 and $10 - will go on sale Friday at 11 a.m. if available. Tickets can be purchased online at ECUPirates.com or over the phone by calling (800) DIAL-ECU or (252) 737-4500 during normal business hours from Tuesday through Thursday. The ECU Athletics Ticket Office is closed on Monday, May 30 in observance of Memorial Day.
East Carolina's initial on-campus hosting experience in 2009 resulted in a regional title as the No. 1-seeded Pirates rolled to a 4-1 record, which included a dramatic 10th inning 10-9 walk-off victory against South Carolina in the championship game. In 2018, top-seed ECU posted a 1-2 mark after defeating UNC Wilmington in the opener before falling to South Carolina and suffering an elimination game loss to the Seahawks in a rematch.
The Pirates won the 2019 Greenville Regional as the No. 1-seed winning four-straight elimination games after dropping the opener to Quinnipiac. ECU claimed victories over NC State (9-2), Quinnipiac (13-3) before defeating Campbell twice on Monday, June 3 (10-3, 12-3) to advance to the Super Regional round. Last year, the Pirates swept through the regional as the top seed defeating Norfolk State (8-5), Charlotte (7-5) and Maryland (9-6) before advancing to the Nashville, Tenn. Super Regional.
While Clark-LeClair Stadium will welcome its fifth NCAA postseason event, East Carolina has also hosted opening round regional tournaments on two occasions at different venues. The Pirates produced a 3-0 mark at Fleming Stadium during the Wilson Regional in 2001 before turning in a similar result at the Kinston Regional inside Grainger Stadium in 2004. Additionally, ECU used the Kinston facility when it hosted Tennessee for a Super Regional appearance in 2001.
For ECU (42-18), the selection marks the Pirates' 32nd overall appearance in NCAA postseason play. ECU has qualified for regional competition in 18 of the last 23 seasons and six times during head coach Cliff Godwin's eight-year tenure after traveling to the Coral Gables (Fla.) Regional in 2015 and the Charlottesville (Va.) Regional in 2016 before hosting the Greenville Regional in 2018, 2019 and 2021. There was no NCAA postseason in 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic.
Each regional field features four teams, playing a double-elimination format. All 16 regionals are scheduled to be conducted from Friday, June 3 to Monday, June 6. Start times for each game will be determined once television broadcast selections have been finalized.
Thirty (30) Division I conferences receive an automatic berth in the field of 64, along with 34 at-large selections. The College World Series (CWS) begins play Friday, June 18 at Charles Schwab Field Omaha in Omaha, Neb.
