UW Baseball
Huskies are headed to Mississippi in NCAA tourney

By The Associated Press

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The Washington baseball team received a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament yesterday, and will travel to Oxford, Miss., to begin regional play.

The Huskies (37-18-1) will take on Tulane in a first-round game Friday. The regional host team, Mississippi, will face Western Kentucky in the other first-round game at Ole Miss' Swayze Field.

The two losing teams from Friday's games will match up early on Saturday, with the winners from Friday playing after for a berth in the championship. Later Saturday, the winner of the losers' game plays the loser of the winners' game for the other berth in the championship.

"I think we're all looking forward to playing in front of some big crowds at a great facility," 12th-year UW coach Ken Knutson said.

The Huskies, playing in their third straight NCAA tournament, are 0-3 all-time against Tulane, with their most recent meeting coming in 1987.

Widely regarded as college baseball's best league the past few seasons, the SEC had an NCAA-record nine schools earn berths for the 64-team tournament.

"The SEC this year was far and above stronger than any conference," Division I baseball committee chairman Charlie Carr said. "We just wanted to be diligent and make sure the best teams got in."

Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt all made it to the NCAA tournament — with a record five serving as hosts for the 16 four-team, double-elimination regionals.

The Pac-10 has five teams — UW, Arizona, Arizona State, Stanford and UCLA. Both Stanford, hosting a regional in Palo Alto, Calif., and Arizona State, playing in the Cal State Fullerton regional in Fullerton, Calif., received No. 1 seeds for their regionals.
 
Arizona, in the Notre Dame regional in South Bend, Ind., and UCLA, in the Oklahoma City regional, both are seeded third.

Texas (50-13), which won the College World Series two years ago, was selected as the top national seed for the tournament.

The other national seeds, in order, are: South Carolina (45-15), Miami (44-11), Georgia Tech (41-19), Stanford (44-12), Rice (43-12), Arizona State (40-16) and Arkansas (39-21). Those schools would face each other only if they make the College World Series.

The winners of each regional will advance to the super regionals, played June 11-13. The eight winners of the super regionals will play in the College World Series, which starts June 18 in Omaha, Neb.

The UW sports information department contributed to this report.