Delaware Baseball Readies For NCAA Tournament

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The University of Delaware baseball team is red-hot heading into the NCAA Tournament.

The Blue Hens (34-21) have won ten of their last eleven games. This includes all four games at the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament as they won the title.

The Blue Hens are headed to the Lubbock Regional down in Texas. Delaware will open the double-elimination regional with a match-up against the region's top seed and host school Texas Tech on Friday afternoon.

Delaware head coach Jim Sherman says senior leadership has been big here down the stretch.

"All eight seniors are contributors and they are all playing well," Sherman tells KYW Newsradio. "So that's number one. Then, number two, we're on all cylinders right now. We're swinging the bats really well, getting good pitching and playing well defensively. So you get those three ingredients working and you're going to win some games."

The Blue Hens were tops in the CAA in ERA (4.35) and batting average (.313).

This is Delaware's first appearance in a regional since 2001, but Sherman says they are not just happy to be here.

"This isn't just 'icing on the cake' type of deal," he says. "You're going into this regional trying to win it. These guys all believe in themselves. I think that's why we performed so well in the conference playoffs. I told them, I think there is more pressure in the conference playoffs then there is actually in the regional tournament. So hopefully we'll play 'loosey-goosey' kind of like we did in the conference playoffs and perform well."

Delaware will have its hands full in its first game on Friday as Texas Tech (43-15) is ranked as high as third in the country.

"They're one of the top offensive clubs in the country, along with us," Sherman says. "So we're two similar types of teams offensively. They've got some good frontline arms."

The other teams in the Lubbock regional are Sam Houston State and Arizona.

Delaware and Texas Tech get underway at 3:00pm on Friday.