ORLANDO – The UCF baseball team (40-20) will face a familiar opponent in the opening round of the 2002 NCAA Baseball Championship as the Golden Knights will face South Florida. UCF has appeared in the NCAA Baseball Championship in each of the last three seasons and eight times in school history. UCF garnered the No. 2 seed in the regional while USF is the No. 3 seed. Florida State, the regional host, is the national No. 1 seed in addition to being the top seed in the regional while fellow A-Sun foe Stetson is the No. 4 seed.
UCF and South Florida will open play in the regional on Friday at 3 p.m. at Dick Howser Stadium in Tallahassee. FSU and Stetson will meet at 7 p.m. Friday in the nightcap.
The Knights are currently riding a season-best 10-game winning streak into Friday’s clash with the Bulls. UCF has faced USF three times this season, with the Bulls winning two. The last time the two schools met, UCF downed USF 6-2 on April 23 at Jay Bergman Field.
UCF has also met Stetson four times in 2002, with each team winning twice. The Knights topped the Hatters 13-6 on May 24 in the A-Sun tournament the last time the two schools met. The Knights have not played against the Seminoles since the 2000 season, when FSU won two of three games from the Knights in the NCAA tournament.
All-time, UCF is 8-14 in NCAA tournament play. In addition, this marks the fifth time that UCF has traveled to Tallahassee for the NCAA tournament.
The winner of the FSU-Stetson game will face the UCF-USF winner on Saturday at 3 p.m. The loser of each of the opening round contests will play Saturday at 11 a.m.
For complete coverage of UCF’s run throughout the NCAA Baseball Championship, log onto www.UCFathletics.com., the official athletics website of UCF.