TOURNAMENT OUTLOOK

• For the first time, the PSAC Tournament, in its entirety, will be played at Millersville University's Cooper Park. Eight teams play in four win-or-go-home games on Wednesday, and the four remaining teams play a true double-elimination tournament from Thursday through Saturday. Millersville, ranked No. 6 in Division II and No. 1 in the NCAA Atlantic Region rankings, took the PSAC East by five games and won three more division games than any other team in the PSAC, hosts PSAC West No. 4 seed Slippery Rock under the lights at 8 p.m. 
• Millersville is the PSAC East's top seed, and Wednesday's match-ups also include East Stroudsburg (East No. 2) vs. IUP (West No. 3) at 9:30 a.m., Seton Hill (West No. 1) vs. Shippensburg (East No. 4) at 1 p.m., and California (West No. 2) vs. West Chester (East No. 3) at 4:30 p.m. Millersville went 23-2 at home in the regular season, and the last time it hosted postseason games at Cooper Park, it went 5-0 in running through both rounds of the 2023 NCAA Atlantic Regional. Millersville, however, is 8-6 all-time in postseason games played at Cooper Park, including 2-2 in 2021 when the PSAC Tournament's initial rounds were played on multiple campus sites. 
• West Chester is the reigning tournament champion as it defeated East Stroudsburg 12-11 in the 2024 final game. Seton Hill has won three titles since 2017. There have been just three repeat winners since 1996 (Kutztown in 2005-06, Seton Hill in 2017-18, and Bloomsburg in 2019 and 2021). Being a No. 1 seed isn't much of an advantage. There are two No. 1 seeds each season, and since 2000, only five No. 1 seeds have won the tournament. That list includes Millersville in 2015 and 2023 and Seton Hill in 2022. Seven of the eight head coaches in the field have won a PSAC Championship. Millersville's Jon Shehan and Slippery Rock's Jeff Messer both have two. Seton Hill's Marc Marizzaldi leads the group with three. Shippensburg's Matt Jones, East Stroudsburg's John Kochmansky and West Chester's Mike LaRosa all have one.
   

MILLERSVILLE IN THE PSAC TOURNAMENT

• Millersville has won five PSAC Championships (1974, 1975, 1998, 2015 and 2022), including two in the expanded eight-team era under Jon Shehan. Millersville is 28-21 all-time in the PSAC Tournament. Millersville was 9-2 in first-round games under Shehan until the last two seasons. Since winning the 2022 tournament, the Marauders have had back-to-back first-round exits, losing to IUP by identical 8-1 scores both years. Before 2023, the tournament was not a true double-elimination tournament. In 2018, 2016, 2015, and 2014, Millersville reached the championship round without a loss, lost one game, and finished as the tournament runner-up. 
• Six Millersville seniors played key roles in the Marauders' 2023 PSAC Championship. Conor Cook struck out 10 and held Mercyhurst to one run over six innings in the semifinals. Evan Rishell pitched two innings in the second-round game against Slippery Rock. In the championship game, Sam Morris made his first career start on the mound and held East Stroudsburg to one run over 5 1/3 innings. Bren Taylor went 8 for 19 in the tournament. Keegan Soltis scored three runs and Jimmy Kirk drove in two runs in the championship game. 

SCOUTING THE MARAUDERS

• Millersville is rolling into the PSAC Tournament as winners of 14 of the last 15 and that one loss was by a 4-3 score to West Chester in extra innings. The Marauders have scored 10 or more runs in six of the last eight games, and they've scored 45 more runs than any other team in the PSAC despite playing three fewer games than any other team in the top six. Millersville's .446 on-base percentage is No. 1 in the PSAC. Jeff Sabater (.505) ranks second, and Bren Taylor (.472) is ninth. All 10 Marauders with 18 or more starts boast on-base percentages of .400 or higher. 
• Sabater is also the PSAC's leader in runs scored with 57, just three away from 10th in Millersville history. His 34 stolen bases are also tops in the conference and one behind Tyler Orris' 2014 total for fourth-most in Millersville history. Sabater has 91 steals in two seasons, ranking him third at Millersville in career steals. 
• Matthew Williams set the Millersville career home runs record last weekend, hitting his 13th of the season and 30th of his career. Williams is the first Marauder with three seasons of eight or more home runs. Double-digit home runs have only been hit 12 times in Millersville history. Williams' 52 RBIs rank third in the PSAC, and he is the first Marauder to record 40 or more RBIs in each of his first three seasons. Williams, Chas McCormick '17 and Luke Trainer ’22 are the only Marauders with three seasons of 40-plus RBIs.
• Taylor broke the PSAC's career hits and career runs records in the East Stroudsburg series. Taylor is also Millersville's career record holder in triples and total bases. Taylor won a PSAC East title in each of his four full seasons. Taylor hit a team-high .381 against the PSAC East. 
• Millersville's weekend rotation of Connor Blantz, Conor Cook, Alex Kuehn and Garet Blankenbiller combined for a 27-4 record. Cook and Blankenbiller both went 5-0 against the PSAC East. Blantz finished the regular season ranked second in the PSAC in strikeouts with 85, while Cook finished 10th with 54. Blankenbiller boasts an incredible 17-1 career record in 43 appearances and 23 starts. Cook is two innings away from cracking Millersville's top 10 for career innings pitched, and he is already tied for fifth in wins with 25 and ranks sixth in career strikeouts with 223. 
• While Millersville's team ERA (4.49) is fifth in the PSAC, the staff is second in hits allowed, second in batting average against, sixth in fewest walks, and second in strikeouts. 
   

SCOUTING SLIPPERY ROCK

• Slippery Rock is looking for its first PSAC Championship since 2001. Jeff Messer is in his 40th season as the head coach at Slippery Rock and ranks third among all active Division II coaches in wins with 1,154. He is an eight-time PSAC West Coach of the Year. This is The Rock's first season with at least 30 wins since 2022. Gage Gillot headlines The Rock's roster. He was the 2024 PSAC West Pitcher of the Year and a D2CCA All-American. He boasts a 3.16 ERA and a 4-3 record in eight appearances, and he's also the team's best hitter with a .361 batting average and .452 OBP.  Stone Powell, with 15 extra-base hits, leads The Rock in slugging percentage. Nate Malak has been The Rock's most reliable starter, posting four complete games and three shutouts for a 3.26 ERA and .226 batting average in 11 starts. The Rock has 16 saves as a team. Mark Wilbur (6), Joey Vanzin (4), and Michael Kitko (3) lead a bullpen with stellar numbers. Slippery Rock ranks second in the PSAC with a 3.94 team ERA. The staff's .255 batting average against and 341 strikeouts rank third. 

SERIES HISTORY

• Wednesday marks the first time that Slippery Rock has ever played a baseball game on Millersville's campus. The teams first met in the 1982 PSAC Championship series when the two division winners played a best-of-three series for the conference crown. Slippery Rock won that series 2-0 with wins of 12-9 and 12-7. Slippery Rock won the first five meetings, but Millersville has won the last six, including all five in the Shehan Era. All five meetings since 2008 have been in the PSAC Tournament. Five of those six games were decided by two runs or fewer, and no team has scored more than seven runs in the last eight match-ups. The 2013 game that Millersville won 5-0 featured starting pitchers Tim Mayza and Lou Trivino, who are both still pitching in Major League Baseball. Millersville won the 2014 game 3-2 in the 11th inning on a walk-off sacrifice fly from hall of famer Zach Stone. Adam Zipko pitched three shutout innings in relief for the win. In Millersville's 5-4 win in 2022, Justin Taylor hit a tie-breaking home run in the sixth inning, and Tyler Wright and Jimmy Losh connected on a relay to catcher Cole Houser to cut down the game-tying run at the plate in the ninth inning.