Hosting at the Extraco Events Center in partnership with the City of Waco and McLennan County for the 12th-straight season, the Baylor equestrian squad is set to take part in the 2018 NCEA Championship, running Wednesday through Saturday.
The tournament format has expanded to a fourth day, keeping the traditional team format pitting the nation’s top eight teams in competition for recognition as the NCEA National Champion.
The addition to the standard format added four event-specific brackets (fences, flat, horsemanship, reining), featuring up to 16 teams competing for one of four titles as NCEA Event National Champions.
The highest combined point totals in the events competitions by discipline (hunt seat, western) will be awarded recognition as one of two NCEA Discipline National Champions.
BU will kick off its tournament run in the events brackets on Wednesday with the opening round in all four events.
Baylor leads off with reining as the No. 6 seed, facing No. 11 UT-Martin, and in fences as the No. 11 seed vs. No. 6 South Carolina, both slated for an 8:30 a.m. start on Wednesday.
Later that afternoon, the No. 12 seed BU flat team will take on No. 5 SMU at 1:30 p.m. before the No. 6 Baylor horsemanship squad takes on No. 11 South Carolina at 2:30 p.m. to close the opening day of competition.
Baylor (5-8) enters the team competition as the No. 7 overall seed, paired with No. 2 Auburn to open play on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. A win over the Tigers would land the Bears into the semifinal round, taking place later that afternoon at approximately 3:30 p.m.
The quarterfinals and semifinals of the event brackets will take place on Friday starting at 8:30 p.m.
The three days of competition leads into the Canadian Pacific NCEA Championship Saturday, with the team and all four event championship finals concluding on Saturday.
The team title matchup kicks off at 8:30 a.m. with the event titles later that afternoon in the order of fences and horsemanship at 2 p.m., followed by reining and flat at 3:30 p.m.
