Michigan Receives NCAA Bid, Will Face South Carolina
5/30/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Aided by a 6-3 record against the tournament field, the University of Michigan baseball team received an at-large bid to the NCAA Division I Championship when the 64-team field was announced Monday (May 30).
The Wolverines (41-17) are the No. 3 seed in the Atlanta, Ga., regional and will face No. 2 seed South Carolina (38-21) at noon Friday (June 3) at Georgia Tech's Russ Chandler Stadium. The host Yellow Jackets (42-16), seeded No. 1 in the regional and No. 2 overall, will meet Furman (30-27) at 4 p.m. Friday in the other first-round contest.
The four-team, double-elimination regional schedule has two games at noon and 4 p.m. each day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with an "if necessary" game scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday. All games from the Atlanta regional will be televised by ESPNU.
Making its 18th NCAA Tournament appearance, Michigan returns to the national tournament for the first time since 1999, when the Wolverines won the Big Ten Tournament to earn the league's automatic berth. U-M last received an at-large NCAA bid in 1989. The Wolverines have advanced to the College World Series seven times, most recently in 1984, and won national titles in 1953 and 1962.
U-M owns series record of 1-0 vs. South Carolina, 3-2 vs. Georgia Tech and 0-0 vs. Furman. The Wolverines were 6-3 this season against teams in the NCAA field, going 2-0 vs. Illinois-Chicago; 1-0 vs. Florida Atlantic, North Carolina and Notre Dame; 1-1 vs. Ohio State; and 0-1 vs. St. John's and East Carolina.
This marks the first NCAA trip for third-year U-M head coach Rich Maloney, who owns a career record of 361-214-1 (.628) in 10 years as a college head coach. He is 105-70 at Michigan, having earned his 100th U-M win on May 17 with a 4-3 victory over Bowling Green.
Michigan joins Big Ten Tournament champion Ohio State in the NCAA field, marking the fourth time in the last six years the Big Ten has had multiple representatives.
The winner of the Atlanta regional will meet the Knoxville, Tenn., regional champion in a best-of-three super regional either June 10-12 or June 11-13. The eight super regional winners will advance to the College World Series, scheduled for June 17-27 in Omaha, Neb.
Contact: Jim Schneider (734) 763-4423
