Western Michigan baseball in NCAA tournament: Broncos to play Kentucky in opener

Western Michigan baseball has its assignment and will be hitting the road to begin its run in the NCAA tournament.

The pairings for the 64-team tournament were announced Monday and the Broncos, who won the Mid-American Conference tournament over the weekend in Avon, Ohio, were an automatic qualifier. Their reward: A trip to Lexington, Kentucky, to take on the regional host and No. 2 overall seed Kentucky. The other two teams in the regional are Illinois and Indiana State.

The Broncos and Wildcats will open regional play at Kentucky's home field at noon Friday on the SEC Network. The Sycamores and Fighting Illini will play at 7 p.m. Friday.

WMU was the No. 2 seed in the MAC tournament and took down No. 3-seeded Ball State, 10-3, on Saturday night for the Broncos' second conference tournament crown. The 32nd win of the season is the most for WMU since winning 35 in 1993. The MAC tournament MVP was outfielder Dylan Nevar, who went 6-for-13 with five RBIs and four runs scored.

The Broncos were the best hitting (.316 batting average) and pitching (5.50 ERA) team in the MAC this season. Cade Sullivan (.397) and C.J. Richmond (.384) finished 1-2 in hitting in the MAC and Nevar was tops in RBIs (68).

Each of the 16 regionals will be four-team, double-elimination tournaments to advance to the Super Regionals, for which the pairings will be announced on June 4.

This year marks the first time the Broncos have made the NCAA tournament since 2016, when they also won the MAC tournament title. That year, they were in the Louisville, Kentucky, regional, and went 0-2.