Another Title Isn’t in Cards as Stanford Left Out in the Cold

Stanford, two-time defending national champion, was not included in the 48-team Division I field for the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. baseball tournament announced Monday.

Included are USC, Pepperdine, Cal State Long Beach and Loyola Marymount.

Eight six-team regionals will begin Thursday and Friday, the winners of the three-day, double-elimination tournaments advancing to the College World Series, June 2-10 in Omaha, Neb.

USC (41-23), 11-time national champion, is seeded third in the Midwest Regional beginning Friday at Austin, Tex. The Trojans, third in the Pacific 10 Southern Division, open against Western Michigan (38-13-2), in a regional that also includes Texas, Oklahoma State, New Orleans and Sam Houston State.

Pepperdine (41-17-1), West Coast Athletic Conference champion, is seeded fourth in the West II Regional at Fresno. The Waves open Friday against Michigan (47-14) in a regional that includes Wichita State, Fresno State, Portland and Notre Dame.

Long Beach (46-13), co-champion of the Big West Conference and seeded third in the West I Regional Friday at Tucson, Ariz., opens against Hawaii (40-25). Loyola (37-22), WCAC runner-up, plays Oklahoma (43-17). The regional also includes Arizona and Eastern Kentucky.

Unlike the last two years, when it selected four teams from the Pac-10 Southern Division, the selection committee bypassed Stanford, which will miss a regional for the first time since 1980.

Stanford (30-28) was 12-18 in conference play and 27-28 against Division I opponents. The Cardinal, however, won nine of its last 10 and played 46 of its 58 games against teams that were ranked in the top 30 at some point in the season, including 32 against teams that were in the top 10.

Arizona State, five-time national champion with a 40-17 record, has not traveled to a regional in 25 years, but is seeded second in the Northeast Regional at Waterbury, Conn. The Sun Devils will play George Washington (30-22) Thursday.

Notre Dame won four games in 22 hours 9 minutes last Saturday to win the Midwestern Collegiate Conference tournament at South Bend, Ind., qualifying for the NCAA tournament for the first time in 19 years.

The victory run began at 1:38 a.m. and included wins over Dayton (20-4), Evansville (11-2) and a doubleheader sweep (4-1 and 21-10) of the University of Detroit that ended at 11:47 p.m.

The Dayton game ended at 4:21 a.m. with about 200 fans--culled by radio announcements and campus word-of-mouth--in the bleachers. The Irish were back in uniform at 2:30 for the game with Evansville.

The Irish, who beat Butler in the conference tournament opener last Wednesday, needed to win five straight games after losing to Detroit in 10 innings on Thursday. Friday night, they beat St. Louis, 10-6, before a 4 1/2-hour rain delay postponed the scheduled start of their game against Dayton.

Notre Dame (47-17-1) meets ninth-ranked Fresno State (42-17) in the West II Regional Friday at Fresno.