2025 World Series Preview

The NCAA Division II Baseball World Series is upon us and what a matchup of teams do we have. Five teams are appearing for the first time. Two teams are appearing for the 21st time. One team is appearing for the second time. Since opening day on January 31st, the path to get here has been different for each team, but equally exciting on our end. This year, there is one change to the tournament format. The two teams who make it to the finals will play a best-of-3 to claim the championship, rather than your traditional double elimination format.

Every game will be streamed on ncaa.com and you can click on each game in this interactive bracket to watch those games, as well as game times and game dates. Friday, May 30 at 11 AM Eastern Time is when the show will start.

Starting with the top seed, we’ll go through one-by-one breaking down some of the best players on each team.

#1 Seed Tampa Spartans (49-8)

How they got here:

Regionals (at home):

W - Albany State 10-2

L - Mississippi College 13-5

W - Albany State 25-4

W - Mississippi College 12-2

W - Mississippi College 9-8 (F/10, J.D. Urso walk-off double)

Super Regionals (at home):

W - West Florida 8-1

W - West Florida 9-4

The defending champions. The nine-time National Champions. Their 21st appearance in the World Series. The Tampa Spartans made yet another run to Cary…but they nearly didn’t. After their 13-5 loss in the regionals to Mississippi College, the Spartans had an uphill battle to climb. While taking the elimination game against Albany State and the first game against Mississippi College, Tampa faced an 8-1 deficit in the 5th inning of the regional championship. A few runs in the 5th, two runs in the 8th and 9th, then a J.D. Urso walk-off ground-rule double sent them to the supers. That comeback proved one thing. It’s going to be a GAUNTLET to be Tampa twice in a row in any capacity. Here’s an interesting fact, Tampa has lost back-to-back games only four times since 2022.

Let’s get into some of the key bats. First, we start with J.D. Urso, who has a whopping 17 hits and 29 total bases in the postseason (most amongst any player remaining). His season slash line of a .363 BA/.472 OBP/.652 SLG have been upped to .567/.600/.967 since the postseason began. He also leads the team with 62 RBI. 

When the speedster Jordan Williams gets on base, look out. Williams is by far the D2 leader in stolen bases with 74 swipes in just 55 games. He has more stolen bases by himself than 142 D2 teams have as a team! With a .363 average and .444 on base percentage, Williams is very much nicknamed, “automatic double” (S/O Tampa PxP Taylor Stolsworthy for the name). 

Lastly in terms of more notable players, Brayden Woodburn hitting .370/.481/.566 over the season with 5 of his 7 season home runs coming the last two weeks is considered notable. Pretty good that the Spartans have three players with an OPS above 1.200 (Urso, Woodburn, and Cole Russo) when the league average is .838 in D2 Baseball.

Other Notable Hitters: Nico Saladino (14 RBI this postseason, tied-most amongst remaining players)

On the pitching side, you would think that we’d start off with Skylar Gonzalez, who in his career as a Spartan is 30-1 with a 3.44 ERA over 225 innings. However, this season it has been FAU transfer CJ Williams, who is an impressive 13-3 with a 2.73 ERA over 105.1 innings. A workhorse that Williams has been, as 10 of the 17 starts he has gone 6 or more innings. Durability. Of those 10 starts of 6+ innings, he allowed 3 or fewer earned runs in 8 of them. 

Of course there’s still Skylar Gonzalez, who’s been the best Game 2 starter for the past two years. This year was no different, as he currently has a 3.84 ERA over 91.1 innings with a 10-1 record. He’s allowed 3 or fewer earned runs in 11 of his 17 starts this season. If you up that threshold to 4 or fewer earned runs, that number would rise to 15 starts.

On the back end, it has been a USC Aiken transfer in Jacob Fletcher leading the way. Over 43.2 innings, Fletcher carries a 2.68 ERA and is tied for the team lead with six saves.

Other Notable Pitchers: Jake Stipp (11-0), Michael Alfonso (2.05 ERA in 26.1 IP, also has 6 saves), Robert Satin (2.52 ERA over 35.2 IP)

#2 Seed Central Missouri Mules (43-11)

How they got here:

Regionals (at home):

W - Harding 8-7 (F/12, Chase Wilcox walk-off single)

W - Arkansas Tech 21-8

W - Harding 13-6

Super Regionals (at home):

W - Pittsburg State 7-5

W - Pittsburg State 12-2

Way back in March, I had the opportunity to see this Central Missouri team live in action. They can barrel up balls, are aggressive on the basepaths, and are aggressive in their pitching with attacking the zone. It’s no coincidence that they are here for the fourth time since 2019. Early on in the regionals, it looked like UCM was going to play out of the loser’s bracket when they went down 5-1 early to Harding. However, the offense clicked for a few in the 5th inning before Brett Grupe (a defensive replacement) delivered a game-tying two-run single in the 10th before the walk-off single from Chase Wilcox in the 12th. From that point on, Central Missouri would excel on offense, scoring 21 in the winner’s bracket game against Arkansas Tech and 13 in the regional final against Harding. Then, in the Super Regionals, the Mules trailed 2-0 in the 4th before tying the game that same inning. From that point on, Central Missouri never trailed as they eclipsed their 21st regional championship. 

On offense, it starts with outfielder Vance Tobol. A slash line of .371/.451/.742 with 16 doubles, 20 home runs, and 23 stolen bases is a big reason why Central Missouri made it back to Cary. Tobol is one of two players in all of Division 2 Baseball this season with 20+ HR and 20+ SB. The other just so happens to also be playing in this tournament.

Someone who has recently jump started on offense is Catcher Chase Heath. Heath missed over a month during the season due to injury, but came back to his usual high-powered offense hitting self. Of the remaining players, Heath is tied for 1st with 14 RBI this postseason. On the season in 123 AB, Heath is hiting .374/.434/.691 with 8 homers and 50 RBI.

Other notable hitters who have done well this season and amped it up in the postseason have been  Dayvin Johnson (Regular Season: .345/.428/.680, 15 HR, 58 RBI, 15 SB, Postseason: .364/.481/.773, 3 HR, 4 SB) and Jacob Steele (Regular Season: .389/.492/.674, 13 HR, 62 RBI, 11 SB, Postseason: .381/.552/.810, 2 HR, 8 RBI)

On the pitching side, it’s been a bit of a struggle with staying healthy, as a few Central Missouri pitchers have been injured. That didn’t stop them from getting back however, as the staff is anchored by none other than JD McReynolds out of the bullpen. In 47.1 innings, McReynolds carries an impressive 1.52 ERA and has struck out a crazy 41.6% of batters, which is tops in the country amongst pitchers with 40 or more innings. What’s even crazier, is he has been even better in the postseason. In 7.1 innings, McReynolds has allowed just 3 hits and 14 strikeouts with a 1.17 ERA. His strikeout rate in the postseason has jumped 10 percent to 51.9 percent.

Other notable pitchers: Sam Wyrick (2.73 ERA in 29.2 IP), Jake Wilson (0.074 batting average against in the 6.1 innings in the postseason)

#3 Seed Lenoir-Rhyne Bears (48-13)

How they got here:

Regionals (at Belmont Abbey):

W - North Georgia 4-2

W - Belmont Abbey 13-7

W - North Georgia 11-3

Super Regionals (at Catawba):

L - Catawba 7-3

W - Catawba 6-3

W - Catawba 6-1

Talk about unprecedented territory. Way back in August, we interviewed new Lenoir-Rhyne Head Coach Adam Skonieczki. This Lenoir-Rhyne team has always been a team to watch for a few years, but in the back of my head at the time of the interview, there was something special about how Skonieczki conducted himself and how he would lead a program. Sure enough, in his first season leading the Bears, they will make the shortest trip of the eight teams to Cary, which is just over two hours from Hickory, NC for the first time in program history in just their 3rd NCAA Tournament appearance. “I think we will travel well this weekend,” said Skonieczki, “we have had such great support from fans and alumni all season long and I don’t think it will change”. 

For a majority of the season, LR was ranked in our Top 10 and there was an opportunity for them to be a host, however, they landed the three seed and ran the table all on the road. Of the five wins this postseason, Lenoir-Rhyne led in 40 of those 45 innings played. While the offense has been putting up gaudy numbers all season long (currently 2 HR shy of breaking the all-time D2 record for most home runs in a season (131 set by West Georgia in 1998 and Quincy in 2023), the pitching really stepped up this postseason to get them here, starting with Andrew Harlow. In 14 innings this postseason, he has allowed just 3 earned runs and allowed just a .190 batting average against. On the season, Harlow has pitched 105.2 innings to the tune of a 3.32 ERA with 119 strikeouts.

His teammate and fellow rotation mate Will Girardi has done just as well for the Bears. Over 95.2 innings, Girardi has a 3.48 ERA. While in the backend, Gavin Marley has been lights out this postseason. Over 4 innings, Marley has allowed just 1 hit with 7 strikeouts, allowing a miniscule 0.077 batting average against. Marley on the season has a 2.41 ERA with 8 saves over 33.2 innings.

Offensively, outside of the plentiful home run hitting, there has been one person who has done it all, outfielder Mackenzie Wainwright. For you data nerds out there like myself, based on Wins Above Replacement, a metric that takes in account offense and baserunning and creates one single number, Wainwright has the highest WAR in all of D2 Baseball at 5.5. Meaning, by himself, Mackenzie Wainwright has contributed five and a half wins to Lenoir-Rhyne. His slash line of .429/.505/.862 with 25 HR, 76 RBI, and 23 SB is nearly video-game like numbers. He is one of two players this year with 20+ HR and 20+ SB. Of course Wainwright also is still putting up video-game like numbers in the postseason too, with a slash of .481/.517/.926 with a trio of home runs.

Cole Stanford is another player who has stepped up this postseason, as he’s hitting .478/.556/1.043 with 4 HR and 11 RBI in the postseason to complement his .403/.491/.791 with 20 HR and 54 RBI season. His postseason OPS of 1.599 is 4th best amongst remaining players in the field. 

Lastly, Sal Carricato has been another big bat for this Lenoir-Rhyne offense. Carricato has 19 doubles and 23 home runs with 87 RBI to go with a .368/.441/.777 slash on the season. 

Other Notable Hitters: Owen Blackledge (.369 with 19 doubles and 13 home runs on the season)

#4 Seed UT Tyler Patriots (48-11)

How they got here:

Regionals (at home):

W - MSU Denver 12-3

W - Colorado Mesa 10-4

W - Colorado Mesa 14-4

Super Regionals (at Angelo State):

W - Angelo State 12-3

W - Angelo State 10-9 (Bryce Jewell walk-off single)

Way back from February 7-9, UT Tyler played a four game series against five-time South Central Regional Champion Angelo State. I watched three of those four games and typically I’ll have other games on in the background to divert my attention. Not this time. After intently watching those games, I said to myself, if anybody is going to take down Angelo State to go to Cary, it’s the UT Tyler Patriots. Sure enough, fast forward to May 22 and May 23, UT Tyler is the one to dethrone the Rams and go to Cary in grand fashion off a Bryce Jewell walk-off single.

That Supers win seemed improbable, as 14.3% of our community picked UT Tyler to win. However, improbability has been this team’s MO when it comes to the postseason. Go back to 2018, when the Patriots were a D3 school, they thought their season had ended and sent kids home. However, an at-large bid got them in, they scrambled to get the kids back, and ultimately hoisted the trophy as 2018 D3 National Champions. They’ll look to do what they did in 2018 at the Division II level, appearing for the first time in program history.

Their path to Cary was mostly dominant, as UT Tyler led in 41 of the 45 innings they played this postseason. The offense was headlined by Tanner Hornback, who has collected 14 hits this postseason with a .636/.625/1.045 slash line with 10 RBI. Hornback has the 2nd highest OPS and 3rd most hits amongst remaining players in the field. On the season, Hornback is hitting .422 with 17 doubles, 4 home runs, and 45 RBI and 16 stolen bases.

Drew Schmidt is another bat that is having an unprecedented season. He recently broke the school record for hits (he has 95 and counting on the season). Schmidt is slashing .420/.513/.650 on the season with 21 doubles, 5 triples, 7 home runs, and 57 RBI. He also has 3 home runs in the postseason.

Justin Williams is the team leader in home runs with 14 and is also hitting .400 on the season. He has a pair of home runs in the postseason.

Other Notable Hitters: Bryce Jewell (.369, 63 RBI), Kaston Mason (.342 with 9 HR)

On the mound it has been the success of the dynamic duo of Rawley Hector and Kyle Froehlich. Hector, the team’s Friday night pitcher, has a 3.06 ERA over 82.1 innings with a 10-1 record. Froehlich over 68.2 innings is 9-0 with a 2.75 ERA. Combined, UT Tyler is 25-5 in games when those two take the mound.

On the back end, there’s Nick Niebur, who has a 1.50 ERA over 48 innings and has been better in the postseason, with a 1.12 ERA over 8 innings. Garrett Arredondo is the other key piece with a 2.97 ERA over 33.1 innings and a 1.93 ERA over 4.2 innings in the postseason.

#5 Seed Northwest Nazarene Nighthawks (44-14)

How they got here:

Regionals (at home):

L - Point Loma 20-6

W - MSU Billings 10-6

W - Point Loma 3-2

Super Regionals (at home):

W - Cal State Monterey Bay 14-0

W - Cal State Monterey Bay 7-3

The Northwest Nazarene Nighthawks early on in the season played a ton of games, as they were already fourteen games into the season by February 15th. We weren’t sure of what to make of the Nighthawks, we certainly were the last to put them in our rankings as the season went on. However, as the season went on, there’s one thing that raised our attention. The dynamic one-two punch of Ernesto Lugo-Canchola and Cole Calnon. Here’s the down low. Lugo-Canchola and Calnon are a combined 23-0 record wise and are an unbelievable 27-2 when they appear on the mound. They have led this team to its second World Series appearance since 2021.

Lugo-Canchola in 88.1 innings has an incredible 1.94 ERA (4th in D2 amongst qualified pitchers) with 96 strikeouts. In 12 innings this postseason, he carries a 1.50 ERA and a .106 batting average against. 

Calnon himself has a Top 15 in the country ERA with a 2.30 figure over 94 innings and leads the country with 8 complete games. All eight complete games came over a 10 start stretch from February 14th to April 26. What makes Calnon even more impressive is he’s the team’s starting shortstop too and is hitting .303!

Speaking of hitting, no one has hit better this postseason in terms of OPS going into Cary than Bryan Rojas. Over 22 at bats, Rojas is slashing .500/.500/1.227 with 4 home runs and 10 RBI with a 1.727 OPS. Over the season, Rojas has a .376 average with a 1.057 OPS with 10 homers and 50 RBI. Nearly half of his home run total has come in the last two weeks! 

Kaleb Karpstein has been a key cog for this Nighthawk lineup as well. Karpstein is hitting a team-leading .398 with 12 doubles and 41 RBI. Nin Burns II holds the team lead with 52 RBI out of the leadoff spot and is slashing .347/.443/.616 with 13 doubles and 14 home runs.

Other Notable Hitters: Casey Wayne (.365 in 74 at bats)Other Notable Pitchers: Wade Duncan (2.60 ERA, 35 strikeouts in 27.2 IP with 4 saves), Jonathan Zayas (2.53 ERA with 38 strikeouts in 32 innings)

#6 Seed East Stroudsburg Warriors (40-14)

How they got here:

Regionals (at West Chester):

W - Fairmont State 11-2

W - West Chester 6-1

W - Fairmont State 6-2

Super Regionals (at home):

W - Seton Hill 4-1

W - Seton Hill 7-3 (F/11 Dennis Pierce go-ahead grand slam in 11th)

Given the gauntlet of the PSAC, we couldn’t make heads on who would represent the Atlantic Region. In our preseason Top 25, we had five teams from the PSAC (3 from the East, 2 from the West). In the case of East Stroudsburg, they struggled to end the year. The Warriors ended the regular season being swept by Millersville and were one-and-done in the PSAC Tournament. Whatever Head Coach John Kochmansky said before the regionals clicked, because this East Stroudsburg team looks like a brand new team en route to their first ever appearance in the World Series. As you can see above, the Warriors have not allowed more than 3 runs the entire postseason. 

Credit to the pitching staff, especially the bullpen. Not one starter has gone more than five innings and the bullpen has just elevated their game. As a unit this postseason, the East Stroudsburg bullpen has thrown 25 innings and allowed only 3 earned runs. That calculates to an impressive 1.08 ERA. 

That bullpen has been a key part of the season, as four different relievers with 20+ innings have an ERA below 3.50. That is led by none other than closer Caden Parker, who carries an incredible 0.77 ERA over 23.1 innings with 10 saves (tied for 8th in the country). Other members are Jake Albert (2.92 ERA in 37 innings), Johansel Brito (3.47 ERA in 36.1 innings), and Cole Dymek (3.09 ERA in 35 innings). This doesn’t mention Ryan Cavanaugh, who has allowed just one hit over 4 innings this postseason with 5 strikeouts.

Offensively, Dennis Pierce came up with one of the grandest of slams in the 11th inning of Game 2 of the Supers. In this postseason, he leads in just about every category, slashing .391/.440/.826 with 3 home runs and 9 RBI. He also leads in many categories on the team for the season, slashing .369/.473/.768 with 18 home runs and 63 RBI.

Another bat that has provided spark for East Stroudsburg is Parker Frey (no relation to my knowledge) who is second on the team with a .357 average. This postseason however, he’s first on the team with a .329 average with a home run and 7 RBI.

Other Notable Hitters: Jack Rothenhausler (1.062 OPS, 64 RBI), Chaise Albus (.381/.458/.667 with 3 stolen bases this postseason).

#7 Seed Northwood Timberwolves (40-20)

How they got here:

Regionals (at Grand Valley State):

W - Lewis 9-6

W - Grand Valley State 15-12

W - Grand Valley State 5-4 (F/12, Logan Voth walk-off single)

Super Regionals (at UIndy):

W -  UIndy 10-3

L - UIndy 11-8

W - UIndy 17-4

We had the pleasure of talking to Northwood’s 2nd-year Head Coach Brad Baldwin after Northwood went 12-0 to start G-MAC play (which then became a 20 game-win streak and 19-0 to start G-MAC play). At that time, Northwood looked like a good team, but didn’t seem like a team that would be going to Cary. Fast forward roughly 45 days later and the Timberwolves are headed there for the first time in program history. Their path to getting here certainly wasn’t easy though. However, if you only watched the 8th inning of every Northwood game, you’d think they are the best team in the country. In the six games of the postseason, the Timberwolves outscored their opponents 20-0 and scored at least one run every game in the 8th inning. As a team in the postseason, they are hitting an incredible .399! They have had some great comebacks during this postseason, but none greater than the Logan Voth walk-off single in the 12th to advance to the Super Regionals. Voth himself has 11 hits and is hitting .440 in the postseason. He and five others have 10 or more hits in the postseason.

One of those five is Myles Beale, who is hitting .444/.545/.889 with 3 home runs, 9 RBI and 4 SB in the postseason to go with a .362/.500/.563 slash with 7 homers, 41 RBI, and 17 SB with 48 walks and 13 HBP in the regular season. Beale from the leadoff spot has done nothing but lead the charge for the Timberwolves all postseason. 

Drew Charters has also been a bright spot in the postseason, hitting .500 with 8 RBI. On the season, Charters is hitting .344. Brendan Hammer has contributed 14 hits this postseason. Josh Getz has 10 RBI this postseason.

On the pitching side the Timberwolves have a great 1-2 punch in both the rotation and bullpen. In the rotation is Tyler Sager (3.59 ERA in 87.2 innings) and Trevor Crawford (2.48 ERA in 54.1 innings). In the bullpen is Adam Wandzel (1.71 ERA in 31.2 innings) and Dominic Mauro (1.94 ERA in 41.2 innings). All of them have thrown well in the postseason as well. The biggest bright spot has been Crawford with a 1.64 ERA over 11 innings. Mauro, however, leads all relievers who remain this postseason with a 0.071 batting average against in his 4.1 innings of relief (2.08 ERA).

#8 Seed Felician Golden Falcons (43-20)

How they got here:

Regionals (at Wilmington):

W - Pace 9-8

W - Wilmington 10-6

L - Molloy 7-6

W - Molloy 6-5

Super Regionals (at Franklin Pierce):

W - Franklin Pierce 9-8 (walk-off)

L - Franklin Pierce 18-7

W - Franklin Pierce 7-6 (Jaxson Wall walk-off HR)

If there was a team that would be considered comeback kings of the postseason, the Felician Golden Falcons would be it. Game 1 of the regionals began with Felician down 7-2 in the 7th inning before seven runs would give them the 9-8 victory. The second championship game vs Molloy in the regional, Felician was down 3-1 early then down 5-4. They came back to win 6-5 with two runs in the 7th inning of that game. 

Then came the Super Regionals. Game 1 of the Supers, Felician trailed 4-0, then 7-2 before rallying back to win 9-8 on a walk-off error. Game 3 of the Supers was no different. They trailed 3-0 early before a 6-run 4th. Franklin Pierce was able to tie it in the 9th before it took exactly one pitch to walk it off via a Jaxson Wall home run. Felician has been on a historic season run with setting a program record in wins and their first season in the World Series. Some may say they do not belong here, but we think differently. They belong and they will be tough to beat.

It begins at the top with Jaxson Wall, their leadoff hitter, who is hitting .413 on the season with 15 doubles, 51 RBI, and 37 stolen bases. His postseason stats are even better. Wall is slashing .441/.472/.735 with a pair of home runs and 11 RBI.

Another bat who actually leads the team with a .444 average this postseason is Luis DeLaCruz. He’s been a great bat behind Wall with 9 runs driven in as well. On the season, DeLaCruz is hitting .317 with 20 doubles.

Last person we’ll mention on the season is Haiden Walters, who is the team’s leading RBI getter with 58 in total. Walters is hitting .313 and also leads the team with 7 home runs.

On the pitching side, their big arm has been Max Weber, who has a 3.86 ERA over 79.1 innings with 99 strikeouts on the season. His big 6-foot-8 frame has been a difference maker for the Golden Falcons.

Another pitcher to lookout for who has done a little bit of both in terms of starting and relieving is Logan Waltz, who in 19 appearances (12 starts) carries a 4.14 ERA over 71.2 innings. Gavin Enright leads the team with six saves over 20 innings (3.60 ERA).