COLLEGE BASEBALL NEWS
Rice among 16 NCAA regional hosts
C-USA runner-up East Carolina could be destined for an
upper seeding in Chapel Hill, Columbia, Myrtle Beach or Charlottesville
From staff reports
©2007 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
The NCAA Division
I Baseball Committee announced 16 regional sites for the 61st annual
NCAA Division I Baseball Championship on Sunday afternoon. For the sixth
time in the past seven years, Rice's Reckling Park will serve as a site
for the opening round of The Road to Omaha.
The 16 sites
announced by the committee:
-
Tempe, AZ
(Arizona State)
-
Fayetteville,
AR (Arkansas)
-
Myrtle Beach,
SC (Coastal Carolina)
-
Tallahassee,
FL ( Florida State)
-
Long Beach,
CA (Long Beach State)
-
Columbia, MO
( Missouri)
-
Chapel Hill,
NC (North Carolina)
-
Oxford, MS
(Ole Miss)
-
Houston, TX
(Rice)
-
San Diego, CA
(San Diego)
-
Columbia, SC
(South Carolina)
-
Round Rock,
TX (Texas)
-
College
Station, TX (Texas A&M)
-
Nashville, TN
(Vanderbilt)
-
Charlottesville, VA (Virginia)
-
Wichita, KA
(Wichita State)
By virtue of
being awarded a regional, eight of the host institutions also have been
selected as at-large teams to the 64-team field: Florida State, Long
Beach State, Missouri, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and
Wichita State.
Arkansas, San
Diego, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt were positioned to clinch automatic
berths by winning conference tournament championship games, which were
scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Teams that lost in those games would
become at-large selections.
Rice secured its
league's automatic bid on Sunday by defeating East Carolina 16-8 in the
Conference USA Tournament in Greenville, while North Carolina took the
ACC tourney title. Arizona State and Coastal Carolina had already
clinched automatic berths by virtue of having won the Pacific-10 and Big
South Conference, respectively.
The Houston
(Rice) Regional will get underway on Friday, June 1. The remainder of
the field for all the regionals and match-ups for the first round games
will be announced by the NCAA on Monday at 12:30 pm (Eastern Time).
College baseball
observers have speculated that East Carolina will likely find a regional
spot in Chapel Hill, Columbia, Myrtle Beach or Charlottesville. After a
strong showing in the C-USA Tournament, the Pirates appear to be in
contention for a No. 2 seed in their regional.
05/28/2007 01:58:05 AM
From staff and electronic reports. Information
published by ECU, Conference USA or
its member schools, the NCAA, or other sources contributed to this article.
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