The 48th annual PSACBaseball Championships gets under way today at Critchfield Park.

Host Slippery Rock University(31-13, 14-6) begins the double-elimination competition with a 4 p.m. game against West Chester (30-13, 13-7). The teams are seeded No. 2 out of the Western and Eastern divisions, respectively.

Game 2 today pits California (Pa.) (33-13, 15-5), the top seed in the West, against East Division No. 3 seed East Stroudsburg (22-20, 9-11) at 7 p.m.

The first round concludes at 9 a.m. Thursday as Kutztown (44-3, 19-1), No. 1 seed in the East, takes on West Division No. 3-seed Shippensburg (23-21, 13-7).

Kutztown enters the tournament as the top-ranked team in NCAADivision II. Only one other PSACbaseball team — Mansfield in 1995 — has ever been ranked No. 1 in the country.

The Golden Bears' team earned run average is 3.30, and ace starter Jason Mills is 6-0 with a 1.37 ERA. Kutztown enters the tournament riding a 15-game winning streak.

SRUhas won 10 of its last 12 games and has won more than 30 games for five straight years. Freshman catcher Matt Adams is two doubles away from tying the school's single-season record shared by Karns City graduate Dan DeCola and Alan Reichl.

West Chester has lost to Kutztown in the championship game of the last two PSACTournaments. The Golden Rams have won at least 30 games for six straight seasons and lead the PSAC with a .342 team batting average.

Outfielder Drew Pare leads the conference with a .433 batting average, including 17 doubles, eight homers and 40 RBI.

Following Thursday's Shippensburg-Kutztown game, the winners of Games 1 and 2 play at noon, the losers of Games 3 and 1 play at 3 p.m. and the Game 3 winner meets the Game 2 loser at 6 p.m.