COLBY, Kan. – The Cloud County Community College baseball team used a four-game series sweep in its final Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Baseball West Division series of the season to secure its first division title in program history while earning the number two overall seed in the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball Plains District Tournament.

Under 10th-year head coach Eric Gilliland, the T-Birds have soared to unprecedented heights this year, going 47-5 in the regular season with a 28-4 mark in the KJCCC West Division to win the regular season division crown by two games over second-place Hutchinson Community College. Cloud County has not dropped consecutive games all season and saw two of its five defeats come by one run, while all five of its losses have been by four runs or less. Currently ranked number two in the final NJCAA Division 1 baseball top 25 poll of the regular season, the T-Birds used a mix of both offense and pitching to rank in the top three across all 18 KJCCC baseball teams in runs, home runs, RBI, extra-base hits, total bases, walks, batting average, on-base percentage, and earned run average.

In conference games, CCCC hit .369 at the plate with a .483 on-base percentage and outscored opponents 394-160 while the pitching staff put together an ERA of 4.85 with 270 strikeouts in 237.1 innings pitched. Fielding was also strong for Cloud County throughout the 32-game conference slate, posting a .968 fielding percentage across 1,007 total chances while allowing just 15 stolen bases during conference play.

Behind Cloud and second-place Hutchinson was third-place Butler and fourth-place Seward County, as all four teams will remain at home to begin the postseason with a best-of-three playoff series to open the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball Plains District Tournament. Hutchinson posted a 25-7 record in conference play, followed by Butler’s 18-15 mark, while Seward County finished in a tie for fourth with a 15-17 mark in conference play and earned the right to host a home playoff series after winning a tiebreaker with Barton Community College by virtue of winning three of four games played head-to-head this season.

The opening round of the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball Plains District Tournament will feature a best two-out-of-three series between the top four teams in the final KJCCC East and West Division regular season standings, hosting teams from the opposite division who finished fifth through eighth in the standings. For KJCCC West Division host schools, Cloud County will host Highland in Concordia, Hutchinson will host Allen Community College, Butler Community College will host Neosho County Community College, and Seward County will host Coffeyville Community College. Winners of the eight opening round series will advance to a double-elimination tournament at Eck Stadium on the campus of Wichita State University, with the winner earning a bid to the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Full details regarding the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball Plains District Tournament can be found at the following link: https://kjccc.org/sports/bsb/2025-26/files/2026_BSB_Regional. Included is game times for all games of the tournament, a tournament schedule, tournament bracket, live video links, and other information to provide fans with a centralized web page to find all information regarding the Plains District Tournament.