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Former Pirate ramrods super regionals
From Associated Press
and staff reports
All games to be
televised
NEW
YORK Defending national champion Texas is hitting the road for a super
regional matchup at Florida State, the No. 1 national seed.
The
Longhorns (46-18) and Seminoles (54-11-1), traditionally among college
baseball's most successful programs, begin play Saturday night in one of
eight best-of-three super regionals announced Monday by the NCAA Division I
baseball committee.
Texas
and Florida State survived close calls in the regionals before advancing.
The Longhorns were taken to an elimination game by Lamar, while the
Seminoles had to beat South Alabama twice on Sunday.
Of the
eight national seeds, No. 3 Georgia Tech and No. 4 Auburn failed to get to
the super regionals. The Yellow Jackets, hosts of the Atlanta regional, were
quickly swatted out of the competition with back-to-back losses to Stetson
and East Carolina, while another regional host, Auburn, lasted until Sunday
before being eliminated by Ohio State.
Three
teams seeded No. 3 in their regionals Houston, Southwest Missouri State
and the Buckeyes advanced.
The
unpredictable outcomes made for an interesting day for one-time ECU
athletics administrator Charlie Carr, who oversaw the process of selecting
and seeding the field of 64 and placing each team in a region that made
sense.
"I
don't think I've been as excited as I was [Sunday] watching the scores,"
said Carr, chairman of the NCAA committee. "We had a little bit of
everything."
Carr is
currently the senior associate athletic director at Florida State under
former ECU director of athletics Dave Hart.
"Needless to say, picking seeds isn't an exact science," Carr said. "We
certainly had some teams create some excitement."
The
committee gave preference to the national seeds in selecting super regional
hosts.
"As we
did in the regionals, we tried to reward teams' success on the field," Carr
said. "You want to reward the people doing well on the field."
Florida
State, which has played in 18 College World Series, is playing in its fifth
consecutive super regional. Texas advanced to its third super regional in
five years.
Some of
the regionals will get underway on Friday and others, as in the case with
the matchup between the Seminoles and Longhorns, will begin on Saturday. The
other seven sites and pairings are:
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North
Carolina State (45-16) at Miami (42-15-1), starting Saturday.
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Houston
(36-28) at Rice (51-10), starting Saturday.
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Southwest Missouri State (38-24) at Ohio State (44-19), starting Saturday.
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Baylor
(44-21) at LSU (43-19-1), starting Friday.
-
Arizona
State (53-12) at Cal State Fullerton (46-13), starting Friday.
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Long
Beach State (41-18) at Stanford (44-15), starting Friday.
-
North
Carolina (42-21) at South Carolina (42-20), starting Friday.
All
games will be played on campus fields, and each super regional winner earns
a berth in the College World Series at Omaha, Neb., starting June 13.
Four of
last year's College World Series participants Texas, South Carolina, Rice
and Stanford are two wins away from return trips. Houston and Ohio State
are looking for their first CWS appearances since 1967, while North Carolina
State hasn't been to Omaha since 1968. Southwest Missouri State has never
been in the College World Series.
"Bottom
line, you really see an unbelievable balance across college baseball," Carr
said. "We're excited and proud that we had so much success, not so much as a
committee, but in college baseball."
ESPN
will televise all super regional games for the first time, with all games
available on a special pay-per-view package. Some super regionals will be
shown on ESPN and ESPN2, while others will be televised regionally.
"ESPN
worked diligently with us to give all of our teams an opportunity to play on
national television," Carr said. "We're tremendously excited about this and
are looking forward to making it successful."
Copyright 2003
The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Bonesville.net
contributed to this report.
02/23/2007 10:44:34 AM
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