Florida to host NCAA Regional

As expected, Gainesville was one of 16 NCAA Baseball Regional sites announced Sunday afternoon.

The Florida Gators (42-18) will be hosting a baseball regional for the fourth consecutive season at McKethan Stadium. They’re one of three Southeastern Conference sites, with LSU (Baton Rogue, La.) and South Carolina (Columbia, S.C.) also hosting.

The Gators will find out Monday if they’re one of eight national seeds, which means they’ll also host a super regional if they win the Gainesville Regional. National seeds and the rest of the 64-team regional pairings and seeds will be announced at noon ET during a one-hour selection show on ESPNU.

“We’re extremely happy about hosting games in Gainesville,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said in a UF press release. “It is great news for the program, our players, the University and the fans and we appreciate the support.”

The double-elimination, four-team tournament will begin with two games on Friday. UF is expected to be the No. 1 seed and play in the nightcap against the No. 4 seed.

The Gators gave up four runs in the ninth inning of an 8-6 loss against Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament semifinals on Saturday.

Last season, Florida swept the Gainesville Regional and then won two of three games against Mississippi State in the super regionals before falling to South Carolina in the finals of the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

Gainesville is one of three regional sites in the state of Florida along with Miami (Coral Gables) and Florida State (Tallahassee). FSU will host a regional for the 29th time while Miami will host for the 23rd time. UF is hosting its 11th NCAA Baseball Regional.

As far as the conference breakdown, the ACC leads with five host sites, followed by the Pac-12 with four, the SEC with three, the Big 12 with two and the Big Ten and Conference USA with one apiece.

Here are the 16 NCAA Baseball Regional sites that were announced on Sunday:

Baton Rouge, La. (LSU)

Chapel Hill, N.C. (North Carolina)

Charlottesville, Va. (Virginia)

College Station, Texas (Texas A&M)

Columbia, S.C. (South Carolina)

Coral Gables, Fla. (Miami)

Eugene, Ore. (Oregon)

Gainesville, Fla. (Florida)

Gary, Ind. (Purdue)

Houston, Texas (Rice)

Los Angeles, Calif. (UCLA)

Palo Alto, Calif. (Stanford)

Raleigh, N.C. (NC State)

Tallahassee, Fla. (Florida State)

Tucson, Ariz. (Arizona)

Waco, Texas (Baylor)

National Seed Probable

After opening this season as the consensus No. 1 team in the nation, Florida’s offense struggled down the stretch. Still, the Gators were ranked among the top five teams in the country for most of the season.

They were No. 1 in last week’s NCAA.org rankings, No. 3 in the latest Baseball America Top 25 and No. 4 in last week’s Collegiate Baseball Top 30 poll. They’re also the No. 2 team in the latest USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll. In addition, Florida is No. 2 in the Boyd’s World Psuedo-RPI’s that were released on Sunday.

All of those factors combined mean the Gators likely be awarded one of the top eight national seeds Monday.

Ticket Information

Season-ticket holders can begin ordering tickets online at 9 a.m. on Monday by clicking here. With the UF ticket office being closed for Memorial Day on Monday, phone and in-person ticket orders will be available for season-ticket holders beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, all fans can order tickets in-person, online or by calling the ticket office at 352-375-4683 ext. 6800 or toll free at 800-344-2867, ext. 6800. Single-game tickets will be available on Friday and the first 250 UF students can get in for free.

Ticket prices for a regional book are $55 each for reserved box seats, $50 for reserved chair-back seats and $30 for reserved bleacher seats. Single-game tickets are $10 for reserved box seats, $9 for reserved chair-back seats and $8 for reserved bleacher seats.

The University of Florida ticket office is located at Gate 1 of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

mikecapshaw
Mike Capshaw brings a wealth of experience to the Gator Country team. He’s been overseeing all editorial aspects of GatorCountry.com and Gator Country magazine by managing our team of staffers, interns and freelancers. He is now moving into a bigger role as a reporter by covering the football and basketball beats as well as providing coverage of all sports on campus. Mike’s 15 years in the business has included more than six years of covering SEC sports and recruiting at a daily newspaper in Arkansas. He has also helped launch a newspaper, magazines, websites and even a sports talk radio show. Because Mike puts family ahead of his career, he left the place where he was established when his wife received an opportunity to further her career at UF. He took a leap of faith that he could find a job in the Gainesville area and worked for a year at a newspaper group before joining the Gator Country family in November, 2011. Mike has won Florida Press Association awards for Best Sports Game Story and Best Sports Feature Story in the past two years as well as a company-wide award at his former newspaper group that includes some 60 publications, for Excellence in Sports Reporting. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @MikeCapshawGC.