Auburn, Alabama get NCAA Regional baseball assignments

The Auburn Tigers earned the No. 4 overall seed in the NCAA Regionals and will play host to Central Connecticut State this Friday at Plainsman Park. (Auburn Athletic Dept.)

By GRAHAM DUNN

Auburn and Alabama each earned a bid to the NCAA Baseball Regionals with the Tigers getting a No. 4 overall seed while Alabama will travel this weekend as a No. 2 seed.

The Tigers (38-18) will play host to Central Connecticut State (3-15), Stetson (40-20) and North Carolina State (33-19) beginning Friday at Plainsman Park.Auburn will face Central Connecticut at 6 p.m.

Alabama (41-16) will be on the road playing in Hattiesburg, Miss to face Miami, Fla (31-24) on Friday at 2 p.m. Southern Miss (44-14) is the host school and will play Columbia (29-17) in Friday’s second game.
Auburn and Alabama are part of a record 13 Southeastern Conference baseball teams selected for the regionals, besting last year’s 11 teams from the SEC in the tournament.
SEC squads earned the top four seeds and six of the top-seven in the 64-team field. SEC Tournament champion Vanderbilt was selected as the No. 1 overall seed, followed by SEC regular season champion Texas. Arkansas earned the No. 3 seed, Auburn earned the No. 4 seed, LSU earned the No. 6 seed and Georgia earned the No. 7 seed. Ole Miss is seeded 10th, while Tennessee is seeded 14th.
Other SEC schools that earned bids include Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Oklahoma.
The other top 16 national seeds in order are North Carolina, Oregon State, Florida State,Clemson, Oregon, Coastal Carolina, UCLA and Southern Miss.
Each regional field features four teams, playing in a double-elimination format. All 16 regionals are scheduled to be played Friday to Monday (if necessary). Regional winners will advance to best-of-three Super Regionals, with those eight winners advancing to the College World Series.
The 78th Men's College World Series begins play Friday, June 13 at Charles Schwab Field Omaha, Neb.