Haverford College Baseball Opens Play In NCAA D-III Regionals Wednesday

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- For the third time in program history, the Haverford College baseball team is headed to the Division III NCAA Tournament.

Champions of the Centennial Conference, the Fords earned the #4 seed in the Mid-Atlantic Regional and they will open play on Wednesday morning against the #5 seed UMass Boston.

"Our guys have worked really hard," Haverford head coach Dave Beccaria tells KYW Newsradio. "We love the group that we have and we're excited to play some more baseball."

Listen to the entire interview with Haverford's Dave Beccaria:

Haverford brings a 27-12 record into the tournament and they really are a pretty complete team. On the mound, Haverford's pitching staff has a collective ERA of 3.55.

"Nat Ballenberg, our pitching coach, has done an unbelievable job of just getting the most out of his guys," Beccaria says. "All of the pitchers that we do have on our roster have worked exceptionally hard and it has been a real collaborative effort on their part to help bring the best out of each other. We've needed every one of them along the way. That's a huge reason why we've been able to accomplish what we've been able to do this year."

At the plate, Haverford is hitting .298 as a team. It is a very balanced attack, with nine players hitting .271 or better and six players having at least four home runs.

"When you have that kind of quality, 1 thru 9, you're never out of a game," Beccaria says. "You're never out of an inning and you have a chance to score runs at any point. The great thing is, I think that also for our hitters, (it) reduces the amount of pressure that's on each guy. I think they know that they just need to do their job, get a good pitch to hit, try to hit a ball hard somewhere and the rest will kind of take care of itself."

These regionals are double elimination. Winners of the eight regionals advance to the Division III College World Series.

Haverford and UMass-Boston get underway at 10:00am on Wednesday in Moosic, Pennsylvania.