JOLIET, Ill. - No. 2-ranked Cumberland University (Tenn.), a former national champion and a 12-time national tournament participant, heads a field of five teams that will participate in the NAIA Baseball Championship Opening Round tournament to be played at Silver Cross Field next Tuesday through Friday.

The Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference and the Joliet Visitors Bureau will serve as hosts to the tourney, one of nine Opening Round, double-elimination events that will send winners to Lewiston, Idaho and join host and 16-time champion Lewis-Clark State College for the 54th Annual Avista-NAIA World Series May 28-June 4.

Cumberland will be the No. 1 seed in the Joliet tourney, with No. 21-ranked Campbellsville University (Ky.) being the No. 2 seed. Host USF will be the No. 3 seed, with CCAC Tournament winner Robert Morris University seeded fourth and Mayville State University (N.D.) completing the field as the No. 5 seed.

Cumberland (50-9) is the highest-ranked team playing in any of the Opening Round fields since No. 1-ranked Lewis-Clark State is given an automatic berth into the World Series as the host institution. The Bulldogs have won 21 of their last 22 games and captured both the regular season and the postseason tourney titles in the TranSouth Conference.

Campbellsville (40-20) will be making its second trip to the national tournament after winning an Opening Round last year and moving on to Lewiston in its first-ever national tourney appearance.

USF (34-14) earned its berth in the national field thanks to capturing sole possession of the CCAC title last week. The Saints were just 5-5 in league play and 13-11 overall on April 6 but then reeled off 19 consecutive conference wins to clinch the title. With the title in hand, the Saints did not have to play in this past week's CCAC postseason tournament and have not played since wrapping up their regular season on May 6 against Trinity International. USF has made nine previous appearances in the national tournament and won the NAIA title under Coach Gordie Gillespie in 1993.

Robert Morris (39-17) finished fifth in the CCAC with an 18-12 mark after coming back from an inauspicious 0-6 start in league play. The first three of those six setbacks came against USF. The Eagles claimed the final spot in the four-team field of the CCAC tournament but then went out and won three straight games - including two over top-seeded Saint Xavier - to capture the tourney title and earn the CCAC's second automatic berth in the national tournament field. This will mark RMU's first-ever appearance in the NAIA national baseball tourney.

Mayville State (29-21) finished in a tie for third place in regular season play in the Dakota Athletic Conference. The Comets upset both top-seeded Jamestown (who is in the NAIA national field as an at-large selection) and No. 2 seed Dickinson State to win the league's postseason tourney and punch their ticket to Joliet. This will mark Mayville State's sixth appearance in the national tourney.

The tourney will begin on Tuesday at 11 a.m. when Robert Morris plays Mayville State. USF and Campbellsville will play at 3 p.m. and top-seeded Cumberland will play the winner of Tuesday's first game at 7 p.m. Three more games (with the same start times) are slated for Wednesday. Two games will be played Thursday and one, if necessary, will be contested on Friday.

Tickets are priced at $10 per day for adults and $5 for students, with children under 8 years old being admitted free.