No. 19 Diamond Dogs Face First-Time Foe Florida Atlantic In NCAA Coral Gables Regional
May 25, 2016 | Baseball
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Tournament Central
CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- No. 19 Mississippi State begins its NCAApostseason quest Friday at 2 p.m. (CDT) when the second-seeded Bulldogs(40-20) take on the No. 3 seed Florida Atlantic Owls (36-22) in theopening game of the 2005 NCAA Coral Gables Regional. Host Miami (38-17-1) takes on Virginia Commonwealth (33-20) at 6 p.m. (CDT) in theother opening round regional tournament game at UM's Mark LightStadium.
The radio broadcast of Mississippi State's games will be carried on thestatewide MSU Baseball Radio Network and linked on the internet atwww.mstateathletics.com. Comcast Sports will also provide televisioncoverage of the tournament, with all games but the tourney-openingMSU-FAU set to be carried on Comcast Cable's regional network.
Mississippi State is making its 22nd appearance in NCAA regionaltournament competition and its ninth in the past 10 years. Statecompeted in the 2004 NCAA Atlanta Regional, posting a 1-2 mark in theevent hosted by Georgia Tech. Last week State topped NCAA regionaltournament teams Louisiana State (9-2), South Carolina (6-2), Tennessee(3-2) and Mississippi (4-1) en route to winning its sixth SEC BaseballTournament title and earning the SEC's automatic qualifying berth in the64-team NCAA Baseball Tournament.
Senior right-hander Alan Johnson (4-6, 4.39) will take the hill for theBulldogs in Friday's opener. The Pleasant Grove, Ala., native pitched6.2 innings and earned the win in MSU's SEC Tournament-opener 9-2victory over Louisiana State. Johnson leads the MSU staff in inningspitched (82.0) and strikeouts (64) and has worked six innings or betterin nine of his 14 starts in 2005.
FAU will start sophomore lefty Chris Salberg (6-4, 4.44).
It will be the first meeting on the diamond between the Bulldogs andthe Owls from nearby Boca Raton, Fla., and representing the Atlantic 10Conference.
MSU enters NCAA postseason play having won eight of its last 10 games,with four of those wins coming against top 10-ranked teams. State hascompiled a 17-17 mark against 11 2005 opponents competing in the 64-teamfield of this year's NCAA tournament.
This is Mississippi State's first trip to Miami for baseball, thoughthe Bulldogs and the Hurricanes have squared off twice in neutral siteNCAA Tournament games in 1971 Gastonia, N.C.) and 1985 (Omaha, Neb).Top-seeded Miami enters the tournament with a No. 11 national ranking.
The winners in Friday's opening round competition advance to a 6 p.m.(CDT) Saturday game while the loser's meet in a 2 p.m. (CDT) eliminationgame.
