After finishing the regular season on an eight-game winning streak, UCSB has earned an at-large bid to the NCAA baseball tournament and will face Oklahoma State in Friday’s (June 4) opening game of the Tucson Regional. The 1 p.m. contest will be covered live on ESPN3.
Oklahoma State (35-17-1) is seeded second in the regional, while the Gauchos (39-18) are seeded third. Arizona (40-15), the host team, is top-seeded and will take on Grand Canyon (29-19-1) in the second game Friday. The double-elimination event will continue through the weekend.
The winners of the 16 nationwide regionals will pair off in the Super Regionals to decide the eight participants in the 2021 College World Series at Omaha, Nebraska.
UCSB was runner-up to UC Irvine in the Big West Conference. The Gauchos will be making their 12th appearance in the NCAAs, their fifth in the last eight years under coach Andrew Checketts. In 2016, they made it to Omaha where Oklahoma State squeezed out a 1-0 win over them.
Both teams have produced a lot of offense this year, the Cowboys scoring 7.5 runs a game and UCSB 7.0. In their last eight games against UC Riverside and Cal State Bakersfield, the Gauchos racked up 78 runs (9.75 per game) while allowing only 22.
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