By Terry Mosher
Editor, Sports Paper
Pacific Lutheran’s baseball season is not done yet. The Lutes were named as an at-large team and given a berth in the NCAA D-3 South Region as the No. 2 seed. The Lutes, 30-12 on the season, will open play in the six-team double elimination tournament Wednesday against at noon against at Emory at Piedmont College’s Loudermilk Field in Demorest, Georgia.
Also in the South Region is top-seeded Rhodes, which takes on sixth-seed Methodist in the first game on Wednesday. Third-seeded Birmingham-Southern and fourth-seeded Marietta play the last game Wednesday.
Pacific Lutheran, which features catcher Curtis Wildung, a senior from Kingston High School, is ranked 21st by d3baseball.com.
This is the second time in school history that the Lutes have earned a post-season berth. The Lutes were in the West Region Tournament in 2007, winning their first two games and then losing twice to host Chapman to finish second.
Wildung hit. 308 this season and leads the Lutes with a .446 on-base percentage. He has a slugging percentage of .487 and an OPS of .933 with no errors.
Emory, which is located in Atlanta, has a team batting average of .29. PLU and Emory have never met on the diamond. A year ago Emory won the South Region Tournament and finished second to NCAA D-3 champion Wisconsin-Whitewater. This year the Emory Eagles were 26-12 in the regular season and ranked fourth in the South Region.
If the Lutes beat Emory they play Thursday against the Birmingham-Southern-Marietta winner. If they lost to Emory they will play the loser of the Rhodes-Methodist game.