ASU baseball opens NCAA play vs. Clemson at CS Fullerton – azcentral.com
Arizona State baseball will make another postseason appearance at Cal State Fullerton as the No. 2 in a NCAA Tournament regional beginning Friday.
ASU (34-21) is the No. 2 seed in the double-elimination regional and opens against Clemson (32-27) at 3 p.m. Friday. No. 1 seed Cal State Fullerton (34-22) plays Pepperdine (30-27) at 7 p.m.
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The winner of the Fullerton regional meets the winner of the Louisville regional in a best-of-three super regional. Louisville (43-16) is the No. 3 national seed. Others in the Louisville regional are No. 2 seed Bradley, No. 3 Michigan and No. 4 Morehead State.
ASU also played in the postseason at Cal State Fullerton in 2001 (regional), 2003 (super regional), 2004 (regional), 2005 (super regional) and 2013 (regional). The Sun Devils’ only victory was in 2005 for a berth in the College World Series.
Related: NCAA Division I baseball regionals schedule
In 2009, ASU won a home super regional over Clemson to advance to the CWS in Omaha, Neb. At the 2010 CWS, Clemson beat No. 1 national seed ASU 6-3 in the opening game.
Six teams from the Pac-12 including ASU made the 64-team NCAA field announced Monday: UCLA (No. 1 national seed) is hosting; USC, No. 2 seed at UC Santa Barbara regional; Oregon State, No. 2 seed at Dallas Baptist regional; California, No. 3 seed at Texas A&M regional; and Oregon, No. 3 seed at Missouri State regional.
“I like our chances anywhere we went,” ASU coach Tracy Smith said. “If we are playing and pitching up to our capability, we can beat anybody.” He hopes to have catcher Brian Serven and pitcher Eder Erives back for the postseason. Serven did not travel to USC last weekend due to a back problem and Erives has been out since being struck in the face by a line drive May 12.
Smith is surprised that the Pac-12 has only one team as a regional host.
More: ASU baseball coverage from Jeff Metcalfe
The national seeds, who will host super regionals in they advance, are: UCLA No. 1, LSU No. 2, Louisville No. 3, Florida No. 4, Miami No. 5, Illinois No. 6, TCU No. 7 and Missouri State No. 8.