The Home-Field Disadvantage

Chapman baseball Coach Rex Peters is unsure whether hosting an NCAA Division III West Regional tournament for the first time in school history is a blessing or a headache.

Earlier this week, Peters was inclined toward the latter.

The six-team event takes place Thursday through Sunday at Chapman’s home field at sprawling Hart Park in Orange, which was not designed to hold these kinds of events.

Several accommodations have been needed, including rented fencing to surround the field and cut off general access, so that officials can charge admission.

“There’s a lot of work to do,” Peters said. “It’s a good thing in terms of being at home and getting to play on your home field.”

The Panthers have won 12 consecutive home games at Hart Park.

“You don’t have to travel. You get to sleep in your own bed, so that is good,” Peters said. “But it’s a bad thing because of the number of games that will be played, organizing the preparation of the field each game, handling ticket-taking and concessions.

“There are a lot of pros and cons that a coach doesn’t want to deal with at this time of the year.” It is Chapman’s fifth consecutive appearance in a regional. The Panthers (33-8) are the top seed and open at 11 a.m. Thursday against McMurry (26-15) of Abilene, Texas. In other opening games, Southwestern (39-9) of Georgetown, Texas, plays Willamette (27-14) of Salem, Ore., at 3 p.m. and Cal Lutheran (27-13) plays Cal State Hayward (23-16) at 7.

Southwestern hosted a four-team regional last year and Chapman defeated Cal Lutheran to advance to the Division III World Series, where it finished third.

Southwestern and Linfield, Ore., were the other two sites considered by the NCAA for this year’s regional. But Southwestern was eliminated in the semifinals of the American Southwest Conference tournament and Linfield, which finished behind Willamette in the Northwest Conference, was not awarded an at-large playoff berth.

TRACK AND FIELD

Although she remains an inch short of an automatic qualifying berth in the NAIA finals, Tanya Hanson of Vanguard established a school high jump record with a jump of 5-4 Saturday in the Meet of Champions at Long Beach State.

Hanson shared the previous mark of 5-3 with current teammate Beth Wiedler. The qualifying mark is 5-5.

Sixteen jumpers will compete at the NAIA finals May 24-26 at Simon Fraser near Vancouver, B.C. Hanson, who is in a seven-way tie at No. 15, still has a chance to advance.

Staff writer Lon Eubanks contributed to this story.

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