MEAC baseball new look likely to produce new champion

NORFOLK, VA (Thursday, May 19) — The MEAC baseball championship gets under way today at Marty Miller Field here with only defending champion Norfolk State among the four schools competing that has won a league title over the last 22 seasons.

Delaware State (19-14) won its last five conference games to overtake Coppin State (17-13) for the top seed this year. DelState won its only MEAC baseball crown in 1998. Coppin State won its lone title in 1995. Maryland-Eastern Shore (15-18), who has never taken home an MEAC baseball crown, is seeded third with Norfolk State (12-18) fourth.

The home standing Spartans won their only title a year ago. Among the four teams, they’ve won three titles in the 42 years of MEAC baseball.

Most dominant programs have left

The most dominant baseball program over that span, Bethune-Cookman, won 17 of those titles (1999-2004, 2006-12, 2014, 2016, 2017). Florida A&M (2015, 2019) won two. Both left the MEAC for the SWAC after last season.

NC A&T, who won two titles (2005, 2018), bolted to the Big South this year. Savannah State, who dropped back to Div. II in 2017, took its sole title in 2013.

Player to Watch

The top player in the MEAC is easily DelState sophomore infielder, Trey Paige. He was the MEAC preseason player of the year and leads the league in just about every statistical category.

The left-handed hitting Paige (6-0, 215) tops the league in batting average (.412), hits (63), runs scored (46), RBI (43), doubles (15), home runs (13) and total bases (121). Nationally, he is seventh among al NCAA Division I players in slugging percentage (.791, best in MEAC), eighth in hitting and ninth in on-base percentage.