Saturday, July 5

Baseball backs into regional bid


Tuesday, May 21, 1996

Despite losing 5 of last 6 games, Bruins earn ticket to AustinBy
Yoni Tamler

Daily Bruin Staff

The UCLA baseball team could be husking corn after all.

On Monday, the Bruins made it to the post season for the first
time in the past three years. Although the Regionals selection
committee had never rejected a third place team from the Six-Pac,
UCLA had its doubts after ending the season with six straight
conference losses and two to Nevada-Reno. At 33-26, UCLA comes into
the tournament with its worst winning percentage (.559) of any
previous qualifying team from Westwood.

But all that concerns UCLA now is making the trip to Omaha it
has been planning all season. The NCAA selected the Bruins as the
fourth seed in the Central I Regional in Austin, Tx., home of the
Texas Longhorns.

"That’s about where we belong," UCLA head coach Gary Adams said
about the seeding announcement. "We deserved to go to the
regionals. We earned the right to go based upon the teams we played
in league, and I think they put us in right about the right
spot."

As the fourth seed, the Bruins will face host and No. 3 seed
Texas in the first round. Adams has yet to win in three career
attempts against the Longhorns, who come into the playoffs at
38-22.

The regional, which opens competition Thursday, also includes
top-seeded Miami, second-seeded Long Beach State, fifth-seeded
Southwest Missouri State and Sam Houston State to round out the
six-team bracket.

"We’re in a tough regional," Adams said. "I think the caliber of
competition is good compared to the other regionals. Stanford’s
regional is also tough. But where we are is where we belong. I have
no gripes about it."

As expected, USC and Stanford were the only other two teams
taken from the Pac-10. USC is the No. 2 seed at the regional hosted
by Texas Tech. Stanford, which is hosting the only regional in the
west, will be the No. 2 seed at Sunken Diamond in Palo Alto.

The regional selection is Adams’ eighth as head coach of UCLA
and the Bruin’s fourth of the nineties. In its last appearance, at
the 1993 Central I Regional, the Bruins placed third with a 2-2
record.

The Bruins come into the playoffs among the most inexperienced
of teams in college baseball. Seniors Rick Heineman and Zak
Ammirato are the only players on the entire roster remaining from
UCLA’s last regional team. However, Texas is in the same boat,
having missed the regionals the past two years.

FRED HE/Daily Bruin

Center fielder Eric Valent gets a shot in the NCAA
regionals.


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