USC, UCLA Hit Road for a Shot at Omaha

The NCAA Division I baseball committee announced sites Monday for eight super-regionals, and as expected, USC will travel to Atlanta to play Georgia Tech and UCLA will go to Baton Rouge, La., to face Louisiana State.

Winners of the best-of-three series, which begin Friday, advance to the College World Series June 9 - 17 at Omaha.

Seven of the eight nationally-seeded teams, including Stanford, won four-team, double-elimination regionals and will host super-regionals. Arizona State, which shared the Pacific 10 Conference title with UCLA and Stanford, was the only national seed that did not advance.

Neither USC nor UCLA bid to host super-regionals.

Nevertheless, the World Series could have a distinctive California flavor if USC, UCLA, Stanford and San Jose State advance.

The super-regional matchups: Louisiana-Lafayette (45-17) at top-seeded South Carolina (55-8); Nebraska (50-15) at No. 8 Stanford (45-14); San Jose State (39-21) at No. 5 Houston (47-16); Mississippi State (41-18) at No. 4 Clemson (48-16); UCLA (38-24) at No. 2 Louisiana State (46-17); Penn State (45-17) at unseeded Texas (44-19); Miami (40-17-1) at No. 6 Florida State (49-16); USC (41-18) at No. 3 Georgia Tech (50-14).

Twelve-time national champion USC advanced to Atlanta by defeating Virginia Tech, Loyola Marymount and Cal State Fullerton in a regional at Fullerton. The Trojans, who won their last title in 1998, have a 13-game winning streak.

USC defeated Georgia Tech, 9-2, in a game at Fullerton on March 3. The Trojans, however, did not face the Yellow Jackets’ top pitchers, Cory Vance (13-2, 3.21 earned-run average) and Rhett Parrott (8-2, 4.22). Georgia Tech is led by sophomore third baseman Mark Teixeria, who is batting .422 with 18 home runs and 80 runs batted in.

Georgia Tech defeated Georgia Southern and won twice against Stetson last weekend to extend its winning streak to eight games and improve to 31-6 at home.

UCLA won a regional at Oklahoma City, defeating Delaware once and Oklahoma twice en route to the title. The Bruins are seeking their first College World Series appearance since 1997.

The Bruins are venturing to LSU’s Alex Box Stadium, one of college baseball’s toughest locales for visiting teams. LSU is led by catcher Brad Cresse, who is batting .399 with 29 homers and 100 RBIs.