By John McGraw for D3baseball.com

Previews: || New England || New York || Mid-Atlantic || South || Mideast || Central || Midwest || West ||

The Mid-Atlantic preview is the last of our eight regional previews. Follow D3baseball.com on Twitter for updated throughout the season.

The road to Appleton in the Mid-Atlantic region leads through New Jersey. It has been announced that Kean will host the Trenton regional as part of the NCAA Division III playoffs at Mercer County Waterfront Park, home of a Double-A Trenton Thunder. The last two NCAA tournaments have featured New Jersey-contested regionals in Lakewood (2009) and Newark (2008).

While the Mid-Atlantic region on a whole features 57 teams and seven automatic bid leagues, Kean has won the last three regional championships and made four-straight NCAA appearances under head coach Neil Ioverio. The 2007 national champions are poised for another run to Wisconsin with a highly potent offense that includes eight returning starters. The road to the regionals for the Cougars however is a tough one in the highly competitive NJAC where they'll face a stiff challenge from William Paterson as well as TCNJ and Montclair State. Paterson was one win away from the NCAA tournament last year and knocked Kean from the conference tournament before succumbing to TCNJ.

Kean is the overall favorite but don't look past Keystone. While the Cougars are ranked third in the D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top 25, the Giants are tabbed 11th. Keystone stomped its' foot into the collective national scene last year with 40-win season and an appearance in the Mid-Atlantic region title game with Kean. Looking past the top contenders, Alvernia is the sleeper pick to advance to Wisconsin. The Crusaders have everyone back from last year's NCAA tournament team. Penn State-Behrend and Manhattanville should join the others in Trenton, N.J., along with Johns Hopkins. The 2008 national runners-up should be able to slug their way to New Jersey but will need to replace several key arms on the mound.

New Faces:

Justin Cook, Baptist Bible: The 2009 Baptist Bible grad takes over a Crusaders program that has only known one coach, the now resigned Don Sintic, since its inception in 2005. Cook played baseball and basketball at the Clarks Summit, Pa., school; he topped the team in earned run average during the 2006 campaign and was also part of an NCAA playoff basketball team in 2008. It is believed that Cook is one of the youngest head baseball coaches in the country.
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The Methodist season opener was delayed a day, but the Monarchs earned a 6-3 win Sunday afternoon at LaGrange. Methodist had five players each record a hit with Trey Such finishing with three RBI and Goodwin finishing with three runs scored. Landon Jordan earned the win on the mound in six innings pitched allowing just two hits while Reid Berry had 0.2 innings of relief and Kelly earned the save in the final 2.1 innings.

In other action: After last night's Opener for both Hendrix and Dallas was postponed due to darkness, both teams faced a long day of baseball as a doubleheader was also scheduled for today. Hendrix defeated Dallas 10-6 in the 11th inning then swept a doubleheader from the Crusaders. In the first game of the doubleheader, Dallas got on the scoreboard first scoring a run in the 2nd and 4th innings, but they gave up 10 runs to Hendrix in the last 3 frames to lose 10-4. IN the second game, Hendrix used a 3 run 5th inning to earn a 3-1 win over Dallas.

Last year Whittier surpised Chapman taking 2 of 3 games to start the season but the Panters saw that this did not happen again. The preseason seventh ranked Panthers combined for 38 hits in the two games as they beat the Poets 14-1 and 11-1. Chapman totaled 20 hits in the first game and the Panthers' pitching staff held the purple and gold to just four base knocks on the day.

Adam Hart threw six strong innings and Kyle Wooden had three hits to lead Guilford to a 5-2 season-opening win at Piedmont. Hart yielded one run in six innings before turning the ball over to Will Simpson, who threw two scoreless innings. Michael Blocher picked up a save with a scoreless ninth inning.

Birmingham-Southern opened the 2010 season with a pair of non-conference games down in Montgomery Alabama. They split the day, falling 5-4 to Mississippi College (2-0) before taking host Huntingdon (0-2) 16-4 in the night cap. The Panthers (1-1) scored two runs in the top of the ninth, but were unable to complete the comeback. The Panthers (1-1) took out their frustration on the opening loss on the Hawks (0-2), defeating Huntingdon 16-4 in game two.