Murray State University Athletics
'Breds To Play No. 16 Baylor Friday At 7 p.m. In First Round Of NCAA
5/26/2003 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
The Murray State Thoroughbreds will open their NCAA Championship experience in prime time, taking on No. 16 Baylor on Friday at 7 p.m. at Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg, Miss., as part of the four-team, double-elimination NCAA Regional hosted by the University of Southern Mississippi.
The host Golden Eagles (45-14) will take on Southern (43-5) in the first game of the day at 3 p.m.
Baylor (41-21), the only regional No. 1 seed not to host in the 64-team Championship, earned an at-large berth after falling in the Big 12 Conference title game to Texas 10-8 on Sunday. The Bears have been ranked consistently in the four national polls, ranked as high as No. 16 last week in the USA Today/ESPN Poll. Polls won't be updated until Tuesday morning.
Southern Miss earned an automatic berth as the Conference USA tournament champion, beating Tulane 7-5 on Sunday. Southern also earned an automatic bid as the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament champion, beating Mississippi Valley State 10-7 on May 4.
The Thoroughbreds (25-29) earned an automatic berth on Saturday after winning its first Ohio Valley Conference Championship title since 1979, and although they are the only team will a sub-.500 record, they go into the Regional with the confidence of having won its last four games and a little coaching experience on the part of MSU head coach Mike Thieke.
"Going to Hattiesburg is familiar territory," Thieke said. "I've coached some seven or eight games at Southern Miss (as a coach at Memphis).
"What's most exciting to me about this is how excited our players are. When we recruited Brett McCutchan, Gordon Dugan, Garner Byars and Ronnie Seets, we told them that they would get a chance to go to an NCAA Regional. It's very rewarding to me that they are able to do that.
"We are approaching this tournament as we have every other game and the OVC Tournament," he said. "We are going to play as hard as we can and try to put ourselves in a position to win."
On Saturday, the teams that lost on Friday will play each other at 11 a.m. in Game 3, with the Friday winners playing each other in game 4 at 3 p.m. The loser of that game will play the Game 3 winner at 7 p.m.
On Sunday, the remaining two teams will play each other for the regional title at 1 p.m. If a second game is necessary, it will be played 45 minutes after the 1 p.m. game.
Each regional winner advances to the 16 two-team super-regionals, best-of-three competitions being held June 6-9 at campus sites. The eight winners of the super-regional will play in the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., on June 13-23.
All of Murray State's games can be heard locally on WRKY (1130 AM, Murray), with Neal Bradley providing play-by-play and Dave Winder giving color commentary.
*TICKETS: The single-game price of admission is $10 for chairback seats, $8 for adult general admission and $5 for youths age 14 and under. All-tournament passes are available for $50. Tickets may be purchased in person at the Southern Miss Ticket Office in the Pat Ferlise Center or online at www.SouthernMiss.com. Tickets purchased over the phone must be done through Ticketmaster at (601) 268-8948.
*PARKING: General parking is available in the lot adjacent to the stadium ($10), across West Fourth Street in the Coliseum Circle ($5) and in the lot adjacent to the Payne Student Activity Center ($5).
