2016 NCEA Championship Central

WACO, Texas - Hosting for the 10th-consecutive year, the Baylor Bears are seeded No. 3 in this weekend's NCEA Championship, running through Saturday at the Extraco Event Center in Waco. BU will compete in the quarterfinals Friday after earning a first-round bye.

The Bears (13-4) are looking for the program's first NCEA championship since Baylor won the hunt seat title in 2012. Beginning in 2014, the NCEA began awarding an overall champion rather than awarding titles to hunt seat, western, and overall.

Baylor will face No. 6-seed TCU for a Friday 9:00 a.m. quarterfinals matchup between the two Big 12 opponents. Baylor won both meetings with TCU this season. The Horned Frogs advanced through round one after squeaking out a 10-6 win over 11-seed New Mexico State on Thursday.

The NCEA invites 12 teams to the field at the event hosted by the City of Waco, McLennan County, and Baylor University. Although the Extraco Center is just a few miles away from Baylor's campus, BU will not be competing in its home facility, the Willis Family Equestrian Center.

In Thursday's opening round, No. 8 Kansas State downed No. 9 Delaware State, No. 5 Texas A&M dominated No. 12 Fresno State, and No. 10 SMU pulled off the upset over defending national champion, South Carolina.

No. 1 Auburn draws K-State, No. 2 Georgia squares off with SMU, and No. 4 Oklahoma State will face Texas A&M.

In the quarterfinal round of competition, reining and flat are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. with fences and horsemanship slated to begin at 2 p.m.

With four teams remaining Saturday, the semifinals and championship will take place in the same day with the semis beginning with reining and flat at 8:30 a.m. and fences and horsemanship at 11 a.m. The finals are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. with fences, 2:30 p.m. with horsemanship, 3:25 p.m. with flat and 5 p.m. with reining.

Admission to all days is free to the public. Fans who can't make it to Waco for the NCEA Championship can follow online at tournament central, which includes results, live scoring, and live-stream links: http://www.baylorbears.com/ot/ncea-champs2016.html.

Baylor fans can follow the official Twitter and Facebook accounts @BaylorEQ, and the Instagram account @BaylorEquestrian for updates.

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