Maryland Earns No. 3 Seed in Los Angeles Regional
5/25/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – After a record setting 39-win season, the Maryland baseball team is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year. The Terps earned the No. 3 seed in the Los Angeles Regional and will take on second-seeded Ole Miss Friday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN3 at UCLA's Jackie Robinson Field.
The 2015 NCAA Tournament bracket was released Monday afternoon. UCLA is the top seed in the regional, and the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, and will face fourth-seeded CSU Bakersfield Friday at 11 p.m. The winner of the four-team double elimination tournament would move on to play the winner of the Lake Elsinore, Calif., regional in a Super Regional contested June 5-8.
"It's really important to the program,” head coach John Szefc said. I'm just happy for our guys and the coaches. It's the culmination of a lot of work to get to this point. This day is like Christmas Day to a kid. You look forward to it the whole year, you build toward that. It's important for our young guys to experience it. It's important for our recruits to see us. I've always respected the people in college baseball who can produce consistency. You want to have stability and consistency across the board, and that's what we're trying to build. For a lot of reasons, it's a really important day for us."
Maryland enters NCAA Tournament play after a run to the final of the Big Ten Tournament. The Terps ended Illinois' Big Ten record 27-game win streak and defeated fellow NCAA Tournament team Indiana before losing to Michigan in the championship game.
The Terps reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 43 years last season. The program has reached the NCAA Tournament in consecutive seasons just one other time (1970-71).
Maryland is 2-1 all-time against UCLA and 0-1 against Ole Miss. The Terrapins have never faced CSU Bakersfield.
Quotes from Maryland head coach John Szefc
On his initial reaction to seeing the bracket:
"We had an up and down year, we weren't a two seed. So when you're a three seed, you're at the mercy of the committee. There weren't many East Coast regionals this year so the chance of having to go out west was a good chance. We want to be playing next week and that's what we're doing."
On learning about three unfamiliar teams:
"We'll get scouting reports from throughout our contacts and just prepare our guys like we normally do and get ready to get after it like we did last year."
On biggest concerns about going out west to face the No. 1 seed:
"I'm not really concerned about anything. I'm just looking forward to getting our guys prepared, getting them some information, getting them some rest and getting them on the field on Friday. The gauntlet we just ran in the Big Ten Tournament is an awfully tough gauntlet. I'm not really overly concerned about anything in particular."
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