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Complete Forecast for  Jul 20 2008

By JOE BUIE
Staff Writer

Junior college baseball teams from New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, Connecticut and Minnesota will join Richland College from Texas at the NJCAA Division III World Series this week in Tyler.

The national championship tournament, which has a double-elimination format, will begin Saturday at Mike Carter Field with four games. There will be four more games on Sunday when two of the eight teams will be eliminated.

Tournament passes are $20. Daily ticket prices are $5 for adults, $3 for students with ID, and $2 for children 9-14. Eight-and-under, or Little League players in uniform, will have free admission.

The four teams returning to Tyler for the World Series are Suffolk County Community College-Grant, from Brentwood, N.Y.; 2007 runner-up Joliet (Ill.) Junior College, Montgomery College of Germantown, Md.; and Ridgewater College of Willmar, Minn.

The clubs making their first trip to the Rose City for the World Series are Gloucester County College, from Sewell, N.J.; Richland, from Dallas; Manchester (Conn.) Community College, and Hudson Valley Community College, from Troy, N.Y.

Last year’s national champion, host Tyler Junior College, lost in the District C championship round to Richland.

“This is going to be the first test of this tournament,” said TJC athletic director Dr. Tim Drain, speaking at media day Wednesday. “Tyler is not in it, let’s see if the true baseball fan comes out and watches.

“I had many people come up last year and say this felt like minor league baseball back in Tyler. We’ll see if they truly feel that way because you can’t root, root, root for the home team, but the quality of baseball is going to be very good.”

The tournament will continue into next week with three games scheduled for Monday and two on Tuesday. The championship game is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday. If necessary, a second championship game would be played at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 22.

“Richland will have a great chance … whether they’re the favorite or not,” said TJC head coach Jon Groth. “To me, Richland, Gloucester and Joliet probably are going to be the cream of the crop. I would think those three teams are going to have the inside track to making it through the winner’s bracket.

Those three have a great history of doing well at the national tournament.”

The history favors Richland, which comes from a conference that has produced six of the last seven national champions.

Gloucester won the national title in 2005 — the only interruption to the Metro Athletic Conference domination.

Gloucester has won the most Division III championships with five. Richland has three (2002-2004). Joliet won it in 1994.

Notes: A tournament banquet will be held for the teams at 7 p.m. Friday in the Apache Rooms of the Rogers Student Center at Tyler Junior College. … Each team will be allowed one hour on Friday to practice at UT Tyler, beginning at 9 a.m. Once the tournament starts, the teams will take pregame batting practice at UT Tyler before going to Mike Carter Field. … Photo day for each team is Friday morning at Mike Carter Field. ... Cindy Smoak, assistant vice president of SPORTyler, provided lunch at Wednesday’s media day.