KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Ten sites and 46 teams have been announced as the 2025 NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round gets underway May 12, ending May 15, with trips to the Avista-NAIA World Series on the line.
Six brackets with five teams and four more with four make up the 68th edition of the championship, which culminates in Lewiston, Idaho, for the 33rd time overall, May 23-31. The teams in this season’s championship are a combined 1711-661-3 (.721), and 40 have made at least one appearance in the championship field in their history.
Among the five-team brackets is Shreveport, La., which will feature a host chasing history, as No. 1 LSU Shreveport (La.) enters the championship with the best record ever posted in a collegiate baseball season. Ottawa (Kan.) and first-time qualifier Southern New Orleans (La.) will meet for the chance to hand the Pilots their first loss of the 2025 season, and the site also includes a top-25 matchup between No. 19 Mid-America Christian (Okla.) and No. 21 Johnson (Tenn.), as the Royals make their first-ever appearance in the championship.
Lawrenceville, Ga., will see the NAIA’s top three base-stealing totals at the same site, hosted by Georgia Gwinnett. The Grizzlies broke the NAIA record for stolen bases as a team, entering the Opening Round with 344 stolen bases on the year. The two teams that will meet to play GGC, Talladega (Ala.) (271 stolen bases) and Saint Xavier (Ill.) (222 stolen bases) are second and third in the same category.
Records are also a theme at the four-team site in Williamsburg, as host Cumberlands (Ky.) is led by Charlie Muniz, who broke both the NAIA and collegiate baseball records for career home runs. The collegiate record had been held by former Major Leaguer Pete Incaviglia, and Muniz comes into the championship with 32 home runs, this season – 111 in his career. The top seed at the Williamsburg site is Missouri Baptist, a team that enters the tournament with 20-consecutive wins. The Spartans will meet Northwestern Ohio, a team with a record-holder of its own in Jeremy Yurcak, who broke records for the most pitching appearances in relief, and overall pitching appearances, earlier this season. Yurcak has appeared in 106 games, total, 105 in relief, in his career.
World Series host Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) is among teams hosting a five-team bracket, and they’ll get defending NAIA national champion Hope International (Calif.), at Harris Field, along with Wayland Baptist (Texas), ending a nine-year drought in the championship, along with Oregon Tech and Dickinson State (N.D.), who are both in the field for the first time.
Oakland City (Ind.) is also making its first appearance, as the three seed of four teams at Waleska, Ga., hosted by Reinhardt (Ga.), and Abraham Baldwin (Ga.) makes its first appearance, in a five-team site at Lakeland, Fla., hosted by Southeastern (Fla.). The remaining four-team brackets are in Hattiesurg, Miss., hosted by William Carey (Miss.), and Upland, Ind., hosted by Taylor (Ind.), and the remaining five-team brackets are in Lincoln, Neb., hosted by Concordia (Neb.), and Kingsport, Tenn., hosted by the only non-institutional host, Visit Kingsport.
This year’s championship field includes 30 automatic qualifiers, 15 at-large selections, and one host bid. Automatic berths were given to teams that either won their respective conference tournament title or regular-season championship, or finished runner-up at the conference tournament or regular season as determined by each conference’s qualification plan. The at-large bids were determined by the NAIA Baseball National Selection Committee.
All championship opening round games will be video-streamed by the host.
2025 NAIA BASEBALL OPENING ROUND QUALIFIERS
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