Jackie Robinson Stadium will remain the Bruins’ home for at least two more games.
No. 15 seed UCLA baseball (42-16, 22-8 Big Ten) was selected to be an NCAA tournament regional host Sunday evening and will return to Westwood for the double-elimination portion of the tournament, which begins Friday.
At the Los Angeles regional, No. 1 seed UCLA will host No. 2 seed UC Irvine (41-15, 24-6 Big West), No. 3 seed Arizona State (35-22, 18-12 Big 12) and No. 4 seed Fresno State (31-27, 18-12 Mountain West), whom the Bruins will play Friday to commence their tournament run.
UCLA’s return to the NCAA tournament marks its first since 2022. In 2023, the Bruins went 12-21-1 over their final 34 games and missed out on an at-large bid. UCLA endured its worst season since 2005 a year later, going 19-33 and missing out on both the conference and national tournaments.
“We certainly deserve to host,” coach John Savage said ahead of the NCAA committee’s announcement. “We played a very good schedule. We won the games we needed to win. Our RPI, … it’s still in the top 16.”
When the Bruins last hosted a regional in 2019, they held the No. 1 overall seed and finished their season just one game shy of the squad’s first Men’s College World Series appearance since 2013.
UCLA just played at the site of the MCWS – Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska – during last week’s Big Ten tournament. UCLA dropped the tournament championship game to Nebraska on Sunday, but Savage said his team’s “out-of-character” performance could be used as motivation.
And despite going 0-for-4 with a strikeout in the title game, sophomore shortstop Roch Cholowsky was still named the tournament’s most outstanding player. The 2025 Big Ten Player and Defensive Player of the Year finished the tournament with two doubles, three home runs and six RBIs across four games.
“When you talk about the MVP of the conference being the best defensive player of the conference, my mind kind of goes back to Kobe (Kobe Bryant) or Michael (Michael Jordan) almost,” Savage said. “Those guys would double awards. Guys don’t win double awards a lot of the time.”
Looking ahead, the Bruins may need to play up to five games in three days. But the pitching staff has shown signs that it could perform under such pressure.
Graduate student right-hander August Souza pitched in all four games in Omaha, totaling four scoreless innings. Redshirt junior southpaw Ian May tossed 2.1 innings on back-to-back days. Junior right-hander Michael Barnett reached 100 pitches thrown for the first time all season. And sophomore right-hander Cal Randall threw a combined 3.2 innings across three games, striking out eight and allowing just one hit.
Arguably most important is the return of freshman Wylan Moss. The All-Big Ten Freshman Team right-hander, who was briefly the Bruins’ Friday night starter before being sidelined with a back issue, retired all 10 batters he faced Sunday in his first appearance in over three weeks.
The Bruins split their two-game series against both the Anteaters and Sun Devils this season but haven’t played the Bulldogs since 2011.
UC Irvine fell to Cal Poly in the inaugural Big West championships but heads to Westwood with the nation’s 23rd-best RPI and a record of 7-5 in Quad 1 games. The Bruins, meanwhile, boast the 15th-best RPI but are 3-7 against Quad 1 opponents this season.
ASU was a one-and-done in the Big 12 tournament and part of the last four to make the NCAA tournament, but it handed UCLA its only shutout of the season until the Bruins’ 5-0 loss to Nebraska on Sunday.
Fresno State boasts an RPI 51 spots below ASU but clinched an automatic berth into the tournament after winning the Mountain West championship.
With the future of Jackie Robinson Stadium uncertain – as a judge’s October ruling spelled out the future of the ballpark until the end of UCLA’s 2025 campaign – and the Bruins not guaranteed to host a super regional, this weekend could be the program’s last at its home of 44 years.
“If your name’s up on the board – if you’re one of the 64 teams – that’s all that matters to us,” Savage said. “You have an opportunity to keep playing and go play for a national championship.”
Comments are closed.