COLLEGE BASEBALL : California Is Shut Out as NCAA Regional Site

Southland baseball teams hoping to advance to the College World Series will again be on the road for regional play that begins May 27 and 28.

The NCAA announced Monday the eight sites for the six-team double-elimination regionals, none of which will be played in California.

And for the second consecutive year, only one regional will be played in the West. Tempe, Ariz., home of Pacific 10 Conference Southern Division champion Arizona State, will be the site of the West Regional.

Other sites include Baton Rouge, La., South; College Station, Tex., Central I; Austin, Tex., Central II; Stillwater, Okla., Midwest; Atlanta, Atlantic; Knoxville, Tenn., Mideast, and Tallahassee, Fla., East.

The schools at those sites, Louisiana State, Texas A&M;, Texas, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Tennessee and Florida State, were awarded berths.

All of the sites that were awarded regionals reportedly made bids to the NCAA that guaranteed at least $100,000. Cal State Long Beach and Fresno State submitted unsuccessful bids.

The NCAA will announce the 48-team tournament field May 24 at noon on ESPN. Regional winners advance to the 46th College World Series June 4-12 at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha.

“I thought there would be two (regionals) out this way,” Cal State Long Beach Coach Dave Snow said. “But in college baseball, money is moving it toward the other coast. That’s what we’re seeing the last couple years.”

Long Beach, the Big West Conference champion, will get one of 24 automatic tournament berths. Eight other teams also will have automatic berths as conference champions, including defending national champion Pepperdine of the West Coast Conference, Arizona State of the Pacific 10 Southern Division, Baylor of the Southwest, Central Florida of the Transamerica, Liberty of the Big South, Rutgers of the Atlantic 10, Western Carolina of the Southern and Yale of the Ivy League.

UCLA (32-20) probably will receive an at-large berth.

By winning two of three games against USC last weekend to improve to 32-20 overall and 15-12 in the Pac-10, the Bruins will finish their regular season with a nonconference game Wednesday against UC Santa Barbara and a three-game conference series this weekend at Stanford.

UCLA reached the regional final at Starkville, Miss., last season before losing to Oklahoma.

“Wherever we go, I don’t think it can be any tougher than what we went through last year,” UCLA Coach Gary Adams said.

USC, 28-27 and hoping for an at-large berth, will finish its regular season this week with nonconference road games today against Santa Barbara and this weekend against Wake Forest, North Carolina State and North Carolina.

Cal State Northridge, 33-18, improved its postseason chances by winning two of three games against Fresno State last weekend. The Matadors could probably guarantee themselves an at-large berth with a victory today in their season finale against Pepperdine.