The Division II Baseball Committee agreed during its June 14-17 meeting in Indianapolis to proceed with plans to expand regional tournaments in the Division II Baseball Championship from four- to six-team brackets, beginning in 2006.

The change will accommodate an expansion of the championship field from 32 to 48 teams, which was approved last year.

Teams will compete in double-elimination play at eight sites. All six teams will play first-round games, with no byes; the loser of one of the three opening games will play the winner of another game.

Committee members discussed at length alternatives for accommodating the additional teams and also considered whether to revise current site-selection criteria for the regional round.

Among alternatives considered by the committee was a regionals/super-regionals format, in which three teams would play in regionals at 16 sites, then winners of those regionals would be paired in best-of-three super-regional contests.

However, the committee settled on the six-team regional format, believing that the regional/super-regional format would extend the season or compress the time available for conference play.

The committee made no changes in site-selection criteria, which currently do not require a lighted field but do require that "all housing must be located within a reasonable distance of travel from the site of competition."

The committee likely will review those criteria after the first year of six-team regionals is completed.

Meanwhile, the committee will require prospective hosts of regional competition to submit the Host Interest Questionnaire earlier than in past years. The form, which solicits information used by the committee in selecting regional hosts, will be completed in early April. It previously has been due approximately a week before site selection in May.

Finals brackets

The committee also is considering a change in the way brackets are arranged in the eight-team finals, played at Riverwalk Stadium in Montgomery, Alabama.

Currently, four teams are assigned on the basis of region (not seeding) to each of two brackets in the tournament, with the winner of each bracket advancing to a single championship game. In a four-team bracket, it is common for two teams to play each other three times in four games, with a first-round loser that wins its second game typically finding itself again facing the team it lost to in the opening game.

To reduce multiple games between opponents, the committee is considering automatically crossing brackets in Games 11 and 12 -- games that match the last undefeated team in each bracket with the remaining one-loss team in that bracket. Under that approach, the team with a loss would cross into the other bracket to play the other unbeaten team.

That approach would replace a current arrangement under which the losing team from a matchup of first-round winners crosses brackets to play an elimination game.

The committee will solicit reactions to the plan from Division II baseball coaches.

In another action involving the championship, the committee accepted a recommendation by Dave Yeast, NCAA national coordinator of umpires, to evaluate and select umpires for the tournament under the same procedures currently employed in Divisions I and III baseball.

The procedure calls for conferences to recommend umpires for the tournament, who then will be reviewed by the national coordinator and recommended for selection by the championship committee.