Virginia Baseball Earns No. 3 Seed in NCAA Fullerton Regional

By Jay Jenkins

Published: May 26, 2008

A small collection of Virginia’s baseball players have been to California.
A few in the senior class, in fact, touched down in the Los Angeles International Airport in 2005 for a connection flight prior to the Corvallis regional in the NCAA tournament.
In a way, things have come full circle.
Virginia will fly into the same airport Wednesday. But this time, a connecting flight is not needed.
The Cavaliers (38-21) learned today that they had been awarded an at-large bid as the third seed in the Fullerton regional. Virginia will open play Friday at 7 p.m. against second-seeded UCLA (31-25) at Goodwin Field in a regional that also features host Cal State Fullerton (35-17) and fourth-seeded Rider (29-26).
“Cal State Fullerton has a rich tradition with its baseball program and we know that UCLA has a very, very good program and deep in tradition, too,” said Virginia coach Brian O’Connor. “Rider is a talented team, as well, which was proven when they won their conference.
“We knew we were going to be on the road going in, and I think it is a great environment for our players to compete in. We are excited to be going anywhere and it didn’t really matter.”
Fullerton, which earned the No. 5 national seed, has advanced to College World Series 15 times, including back-to-back trips. The Titans enter the tourney ranked No. 8 in the country.
UCLA, the No. 1 team in the nation in one preseason poll, played in a Super Regional last season, but lost the best-of-three series to Fullerton. The Bruins are not currently ranked and boast an RPI of 42 (Virginia is No. 29), but finished third in the PAC 10 standings. 
Rider, in the tournament for the first time since 1994, earned an automatic bid by winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
The format for the regional is double-elimination. The two winning teams from Friday’s play will advance to meet on Saturday (11 p.m.) and the two losing teams will meet Saturday (7 p.m.) in an elimination game.