The long NCAA baseball drought for USC is over…
News and wire reports — USC baseball has ended its postseason drought with an invitation to the Corvallis Regional hosted by Oregon State as the No. 3 seed, the NCAA announced earlier today.
USC’s postseason fate was in doubt during the final weeks of the season, but the Trojans squeezed into the tournament field for the first time since 2015 and for only the second time since 2005, when Hall-of-Fame coach Mike Gillespie was in charge. The Trojans got into the tournament as one of the “Last Four In.”
USC, ranked as high as No. 25 in the polls this season, opens play in Corvallis against TCU (39-18) at noon PDT on Friday on ESPNU. Oregon State and Saint Mary’s round out the regional field. USC is 5-7 all-time against the Horned Frogs.
Three years into the Andy Stankiewicz era, USC earned the berth after going 35-21 overall this season and finishing fourth in the Big Ten with an 18-12 conference record.
Despite years of recent struggles, USC still overwhelmingly owns the most NCAA Titles of any program with 12, surpassing the next closest contender by nearly double (LSU at seven). The Trojans have made 21 College World Series appearances and own an overall postseason record of 208-77. USC’s last CWS appearance was in 2001, and the program’s last CWS title was in 1998.
Over the last three years under Stankiewicz, USC has posted the first back-to-back-to-back 30-win seasons since Gillespie. Stankiewicz is the first USC coach since Gillespie to win at least 100 games in their first three seasons.
It is a double-elimination tournament to progress out of the regional into the Super Regional (June 6 through June 9), and the winner of the Corvallis Regional will take on the winner of a Tallahassee Regional featuring overall No. 9 seed Florida State, Mississippi State, Northeastern and Bethune-Cookman.
Hedges, a JR from Mater Dei, also went 2-1 with nine saves and a 2.40 ERA as a reliever this year.
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