The 2003 America East Baseball Championship will be held Thursday, May 22 through Saturday, May 24 at Centennial Field in Burlington, Vt. The four-team tournament is a double-elimination format.
The winner of the America East Championship receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Baseball Championship.
Seven America East member institutions-- University at Albany, Binghamton University, University of Hartford, University of Maine, Northeastern University, Stony Brook University and University of Vermont?will compete for the four championship berths.
The seven teams will each play a 24-game regular-season conference schedule with a four-game series (seven-inning games) vs. each conference opponent.
Last season, Maine won its first America East Championship since the inaugural conference tournament in 1993. Northeastern won championships in 1994 and 1997.
The 2003 America East Championship will mark the first time Vermont will host a conference baseball tournament at Centennial Field, one of the oldest collegiate facilities in the nation. Vermont has called Centennial Field home since 1906 and the existing grandstand, which seats 4,400 fans, has been in place since in 1922. Major renovations to the field and the grandstand were made in the 1990’s.
Centennial Field has also been the home of the Vermont Expos, the short-season, single A affiliate of the Montreal Expos for the last nine seasons. Due to the partnership between the Catamounts and the Expos, Centennial Field is one of the finest college ballparks in the Northeast. The Vermont Expos, very popular in the Champlain Valley, will welcome their one-millionth fan to Centennial Field later this month.
The site in the 1980’s of an Eastern League franchise (Reds and Mariners), major league stars such as Jeff Montgomery, Barry Larkin, Rob Dibble, Omar Vizquel, Ken Griffey, Orlando Cabrera and Michael Barrett have called Centennial Field home during their minor league careers. In recent years, several big league stars have also originated from America East baseball and have also played on the Centennial diamond including Houston’s Jeff Bagwell (Hartford), Baltimore’s Mike Bordick (Maine) and Detroit’s Carlos Pena (Northeastern).
2003 America East Baseball Championship
Centennial Field, Burlington, Vt.
Thursday, May 22
Game 1, 3:30 p.m.
Game 2, 7 p.m.
Friday, May 23
Game 3-- Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, 12 noon
Game 4-- Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2, 3:30 p.m.
Game 5-- Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4, 7 p.m.
Saturday, May 24
Game 6-- Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5, 12 noon
Game 7-- (same teams if necessary)