In just four days, eight teams will set foot on the field at Fox Cities stadium to contest for the 2008 NCAA Division III baseball Championship.

Over five days, up to 15 games will be played ending with the presentation of a Walnut and Bronze trophy to the 2008 national champion. This week on D3baseball.com, we will give you our thoughts on the upcoming tournament and unveil the 2008 D3baseball.com All-American team. When the games start, all the action will be covered by our staff here at D3baseball.com.

Coverage from Day 5 , Day 4 , Day 3 , Day 2 and Day 1 of the 2008 regional playoffs.

At the beginning of the season D3baseball.com takes out its crystal ball and we were able to see Cortland State, Chapman, Johns Hopkins and Kean making the final double elimination tournament of the year. UW-Whitewater was our cinderella pick for the Midwest region and we did not see Linfield, Adrian and the story of the year in Trinity (Conn.) making the trip to Appleton, Wis. First round match-ups for Friday May 23 are as follows (all times CDT):

Game 1 (10:00 am): No. 1 Chapman vs. No. 6 Kean
Game 2 (1:15 pm): Adrian vs. No. 5 John Hopkins
Game 3 (4:30 pm): No 11. UW-Whitwater vs. Linfield
Game 4 (7:45 pm): No. 2 Cortland State vs. No 3. Trinity (Conn.)

All four games have intriguing match-ups. Game one features the topped ranked team since week one against the defending national champions and the number one team in 2007. Game two features the upstart Adrian Bulldogs who are not only making their first trip to the championship round, but the first team from the MIAA to compete in the final round. They play Johns Hopkins, a frequent playoff team that have not been made it past the regional round since 1989.

Game three features the regional favorite in UW-Whitewater pitted against Scott Brosius' Linfield Wildcats. The marquee matchup is the final game of the day. Cortland State handed Trinity its last loss when it knocked the Bantams out of the NCAA Regionals by a score of 10-6. The Red Dragon's school-record 38-game winning streak is just three games shorter than Trinity's 41 game streak.

In the last 15 years, only 17 teams have finished the season with five or few losses and three of those teams are in Appleton over the Memorial Day weekend. Before this year, five of 13 teams got their final two losses in the National Championship series, with only UW-Oshkosh (1994) and William Paterson (1996) capturing the national title.

Teams with five or fewer losses since 1994

2008: Trinity (Conn.)* (41-0); Cortland State (41-3)*, Chapman (39-3)*, Salisbury (41-4)
2007: Texas-Tyler (37-1); Keystone (34-5)
2004: Johns Hopkins (40-4)
2002: Dallas (33-3)
1999: UW-Oshkosh (34-4)
1998: Cortland State* (40-5), Wisconsin-Oshkosh* (41-5)
1996: William Paterson# (39-5-1); Rensselaer* (29-5); St. Thomas (Minn) (38-5)
1995: UW-Oshkosh* (39-5)
1994: UW-Oshkosh# (41-4); NC Wesleyan* (41-3)

* Participated in that year's D-III Championship Series (10 teams)
# Won the national Championship (2 teams to date)
Note: Both Texas-Tyler and Keystone were on their final year of provisional status in 2007 and were not eligible for the playoffs.