STAFF REPORT
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Cortland and Penn State won first-round games Friday in the North Atlantic Regional Tournament, a four-team National Club Baseball Association event hosted by Oneonta for the second straight year.
Cortland beat Rutgers, 7-5, at Field 6 in Neahwa Park and four-time defending champion Penn State edged Delaware, 4-3, at Damaschke Field in the opening round of the double-elimination tournament.
Cortland will meet Penn State in a winners' bracket game at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Field 6, where Rutgers and Delaware will play an elimination game at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
The Rutgers-Delaware winner will play the Cortland-Penn State loser at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Field 6. The winner of that game will advance to the tournament final against the Cortland-Penn State winner at 10 a.m. Sunday at Damaschke Field.
If necessary, a second championship game will follow at 1 p.m. Sunday at Damaschke.
Tournament coordinator Peter Chalfin said Friday that Penn State has won the tournament every year except 2005, when UMass earned the title.
Chalfin added the tourney started in 2000 and was played at Williamsport, Pa. _ the home of the Little League World Series and the New York-Penn League's Williamsport Crosscutters _ before moving to Oneonta last year.
The NAR Tournament champion advances to the NCBA Division I World Series, which runs May 28-June 3 in Fort Myers, Fla.
