By Andy Walter

DOVER — It didn’t take a mathematician to see that four teams wasn’t enough.

The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference got through one spring with just four remaining baseball programs, but something clearly had to be done.

And while Delaware State coach J.P. Blandin was confident MEAC administrators could find a solution, he also said, “you never know.”

“All I can tell you is that it was really important to the schools that remained in the conference ... to make sure that we had a place to have a home,” he said. “They really went to work for us.”

On Tuesday, officials announced that DSU and the other three remaining MEAC baseball programs will be joining the Northeast Conference as associate members. The Hornets will also become members of the league in women’s golf.

Blandin said the move “was great news.”

DelState was able to become part of a 42-year-old conference that will now have 11 baseball members while remaining in a league with MEAC members Maryland Eastern Shore, Coppin State and Norfolk State.

The rest of the NEC includes Central Connecticut, Fairleigh Dickinson, Long Island, Merrimack, Sacred Heart, Stonehill and Wagner. Long Island won its second conference title in baseball this spring.

One of the biggest benefits is that the NEC has an automatic berth in the NCAA Division I tournament. While the NCAA allowed the MEAC to hang onto its automatic bid last season, that wouldn’t have continued.

Six teams in a sport is the minimum number for a league to have an NCAA automatic bid. At its height, the MEAC had nine baseball-playing members.

“I think it’s a great fit,” Blandin said about the NEC. “The footprint has changed for us, of course. We were the most northern school (in the MEAC) and now we’re one of the most southern schools. So that’s a little bit different.

“But it’s exciting to build these relationships, these rivalries, with the new schools and still have the four schools that are left from our conference.”

Coincidence or not, the MEAC’s former southern-most members dominated the league in baseball. Bethune-Cookman, in Florida, won 19 MEAC crowns with Florida A&M winning eight, all since 1985.

Delaware State won the regular-season title but lost to Coppin State in this year’s conference tournament finals — the last one in the MEAC’s history. Blandin was named the Coach of the Year.

Of course, it’s what the players think that probably matters the most in DelState’s move to the NEC. The Hornets had 15 in-state players on their roster this past season.

“The guys are excited about it,” said Blandin. “They’re excited for the new landscape. ... They hung in there. They believed that we were heading in a good direction.

“We still had a lot of pride and the rivalries were strong (in the MEAC). Every time we played, everybody rose to the occasion.”

Sports editor Andy Walter can be reached at 302-741-8227 or walter@iniusa.org.
Follow on Twitter at @DSNSports.