The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics announced on May 7th where the 46 participants in the 2025 postseason national championship baseball tournament will be playing in its opening round which will run May 12-15.
Two Historically Black College and University (HBCU) baseball programs will be represented this year in Talladega College and Southern University at New Orleans.
Talladega College (42-12), the HBCUAC regular season and conference tournament winner will be making its sixth appearance and second straight, in the national tournament’s opening round and will compete in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
The Lawrenceville Bracket will feature host Georgia Gwinnett College (49-4), the No. 2 ranked team in NAIA baseball and the University of Houston-Victoria (38-15), the No. 14 ranked team. A third team in the bracket, Keiser University (35-15), received votes in the poll. Talladega College, the fourth seed, will square-off against the fifth seed, Saint Xavier University (31-22) with the winner moving on to face Georgia Gwinnett.
Speed should be on display in Lawrenceville as Georgia Gwinnett leads the country in stolen bases with 344 (an NAIA record), Talladega College is second with 271 and Saint Xavier ranks third with 222.
In the program’s second season of varsity competition (the school had a “club” team for one year in the 70s), Southern University at New Orleans (24-25) will be making its first appearance in the NAIA tournament thanks to an automatic bid for finishing second in the recent HBCUAC conference tournament.
The Knights of SUNO will participate in the Shreveport, Louisiana bracket where the nation’s top ranked team, Louisiana State University-Shreveport (51-0) will be the No. 1 seed and try to keep its undefeated season intact. The LSU-Shreveport Pilots will face off against the winner of the game between No.4 seed Ottawa University (38-14) and No. 5 seed Southern University at New Orleans.
Completing the Shreveport Bracket will be the NAIA’s No. 21 ranked Johnson University (35-16) and Mid-American Christian University (38-15), which is ranked No. 19 in the NAIA national poll.
Coverage of the opening round of the 2025 NAIA National Championship can be found on the NAIA’s “tournament central” webpage found here.