Lsu, Alabama Lead Baseball Seeds Pac-10 Champ Washington Draws Sw Louisiana In First Round Of Mideast Regional On Thursday
Defending champion Louisiana State and top-ranked Alabama were made No. 1 seeds Monday in an NCAA baseball tournament dominated by four conferences and five states.
The Southeastern Conference landed six berths in the 48-team field, which begins play at eight regional sites Thursday. Five bids went to the Pac-10 while the Atlantic Coast and Big 12 conferences each got four.
Twenty-six berths - more than half the field - went to schools in California, Florida, Texas, Alabama and North Carolina.
Miami, the No. 1 seed in the Atlantic Regional and last year’s runner-up to LSU, extended its NCAA record with a 25th consecutive bid. Marist and Southwest Texas State will be making their first appearance in the 51-year-old tourney while Tennessee Tech, seeded sixth in the Mideast Regional, returns for the first time since 1956.
The six-team regional tournaments will run through Sunday and the eight regional winners will advance to the College World Series May 30-June 7 in Omaha, Neb. Six regonal hosts, all selected last week, drew No. 1 seeds.
Texas (29-22) failed to make the field for the first time since 1977.
Ken Knutson, fifth-year coach of the Washington Huskies, who earned their first Pac-10 title when they beat Stanford in a best-of-3 series, is optimistic heading to the Mideast Regional against Southwest Louisiana.
“If we get hot in the tournament, we can win it,” said Knutson, a former UW pitcher and pitching coach.
In 1994, the Huskies got to within one victory of the College World Series.
It rains a lot in Seattle, a climate that doesn’t attract college baseball players, but Bobo Brayton has retired at Washington State and the Huskies now dominate the state of Washington in recruiting baseball players. Thirty-three of UW’s 35 players are from within the state.
“It used to be that the only place to go was Washington State,” Knutson said. “Now, they know if they come to Washington, they’ll play a good schedule and have a chance to be very competitive.”
The Huskies were ranked 19th in the Collegiate Baseball poll last week. Stanford was sixth.
Knutson thinks this is his best Washington team, better than the ‘94 Huskies, because of the offense. The Huskies are averaging 9.8 runs a game and hitting .345. Pac-10 Player of the Year Kevin Miller, a sophomore shortstop, and junior first baseman Ryan Soules have 12 homers.
xxxx HUSKIES MISSISSIPPI-BOUND Pairings for the Mideast Regional, involving Pac-10 champion Washington, at Mississippi State: No. 1 seed Georgia Tech (44-13) vs. No. 6 Tennessee Tech (38-21); No. 2 Mississippi State (41-18) vs. No. 5 Ohio State (42-16); No. 3 Southwestern Louisiana (43-16) vs. No. 4 Washington (43-18).