After doing all it could in the second half to make its case for the postseason, Stanford baseball saw its efforts come to fruition on Monday morning when it heard its name called by the NCAA selection committee. The Cardinal will be headed to an NCAA Regional for the fourth time in five years and for the 29th time in program history, clinching a ticket to the Bloomington, Indiana Regional as the No. 3 seed in a quartet that features host and fourth overall seed Indiana.
In their regional, the Cardinal will first face off against second-seeded Indiana State (35-16, 14-7 Missouri Valley), which finished second in the MVC to earn an at-large bid. Aside from Big Ten champion Indiana (42-13-1, 21-3 Big Ten), the Cardinal’s bracket also features fourth-seeded Youngstown State (16-36, 6-17 Horizon League), which automatically made the cut as the Horizon League Tournament champions despite its ugly record and its last-place finish in its conference during the regular season.
Stanford will kick off its latest postseason run on Friday in the first-to-three-wins, double-elimination regional against the Sycamores, Hoosiers and Penguins with the winner advancing to the Super Regional to face the winner of the Nashville Regional, which features Vanderbilt, Xavier, Clemson and Oregon.
In order to qualify, the Cardinal had a strong second half after a mediocre first half to their regular season, finishing 19-7 in their last 26 games, including series wins on each of the final four weekends, to become the fifth and final team in the Pac-12 to be named to the field of 64. Stanford joins top overall seed Oregon State, Oregon, Arizona State and Washington as qualifiers from its conference.
In their last qualification for the NCAA Tournament, the Cardinal were the No. 1 seed in their regional and qualified for the Super Regional with three wins over Fresno State and Pepperdine before suffering a combined 35-8 drubbing at the hands of third overall seed Florida State.
Stanford has not played any of the teams in its regional since 1959.
The Cardinal will kick off postseason play at 11 a.m. against Indiana State in Bloomington, with the winner of the game moving on to face the winner of the 4 p.m. Indiana-Youngstown State matchup and the loser going on to face its losing counterpart.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at [email protected].