May 29, 2006

NEW ORLEANS, La. - The Tulane University baseball team claimed its ninth consecutive NCAA Regional bid on Monday as the NCAA Selection Committee announced the Green Wave would be the No. 2 seed in the 2006 Oxford Regional, hosted by the University of Mississippi at Swayze Field.

The Green Wave, who will be making their 18th trip to the NCAA postseason, will open the Oxford Regional vs. third-seeded South Alabama on Friday, June 2 at 3 p.m. Other teams in the regional are the top-seeded Rebels, who are hosting for the third consecutive year, and No. 4 seed Bethune-Cookman College.

The trip to Oxford is the second in the last three years for the Green Wave. In 2004, Tulane entered the Regional at Ole Miss as the No. 3 seed and sandwiched 3-2 and 12-3 wins over second-seeded Washington around a 7-0 victory over No. 4 seed Western Kentucky to give the Green Wave their first regional title away from home.

"It's more difficult (to win on the road) and history has shown that," Tulane head coach Rick Jones said. "But we also showed two years ago that we can go on the road and win a Regional. We're going to hang our hat on that, go out tomorrow at practice and get ready for it and do the same things we've done all year. The key thing is you work as hard as you can to get into an NCAA Tournament, and once you get there you want to play your best baseball regardless of where you are. That hasn't changed for us in any of the years before, and that won't change for us now."

Tulane (41-19) is one of four Conference USA schools to earn bids to the NCAA postseason. Joining the Green Wave from C-USA are No. 1 seed Rice (Houston Regional), second-seeded Houston (Norman Regional) and third-seeded Southern Miss (Tuscaloosa Regional). The Green Wave are the only team from Louisiana to advance to the NCAA postseason.

The berth into the NCAA Regionals marks the 10th time in 13 years under Jones that Tulane advanced to the postseason, including College World Series appearances in 2001 and 2005. The trip to Oxford, Miss., is the fourth trip to "The Magnolia State" for NCAA postseason action as Tulane played in the 1979 South Regional and 2000 Starkville Regional hosted by Mississippi State prior to 2004's trip to Ole Miss.

Tulane faced its first-round opponent, South Alabama, in a weekend series back on March 17-19. The two teams split the first two games at Zephyr Field as the Green Wave won the opener, 6-3, and the Jaguars claimed game two, 8-4. Tulane bounced back in the series finale, though, with a 7-2 win in Mobile, Ala.

"We won two out of three from South Alabama (during the regular season), but that was over two months ago," Jones said. "I know they're playing well, and so are we. Once you get into the NCAA Tournament, every year you're going to have some surprises and some things happen that weren't predictable.

"We know about their club and they know about ours. It's one of the few times we've opened up tournament play with a team that we had a three-game series with during the course of the season. That'll be a little bit unique for our guys, but we're just glad to be in there."

The Green Wave are 70-103-1 all-time against the field as Tulane is 49-80-1 vs. Ole Miss and 21-23 vs. South Alabama. Tulane and Bethune-Cookman, meanwhile, have never met on the diamond. While Tulane and South Alabama played each other earlier this year, the Green Wave have not played Ole Miss since Feb. 19, 1999, when Tulane defeated the Rebels, 8-6, in game two of the Winn-Dixie Showdown in the Louisiana Superdome.

The 2006 Oxford Reginal marks the third time since 2001 that Tulane and Ole Miss are in the same bracket (2001 and 2004), and on both occasions, the two teams did not meet and the Green Wave claimed the regional title.

The winner of the Oxford Regional will advance to take on the winner of the Lincoln (Neb.) Regional in the NCAA Super Regionals which begin on Friday, June 9. The winner of the Super Regional moves on to the College World Series.

2006 NCAA Oxford Regional Schedule
Friday, June 2
Game 1: No. 2 Tulane vs. No. 3 South Alabama, 3:00 p.m.
Game 2: No. 1 Ole Miss vs. No. 4 Bethune-Cookman, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, June 3
Game 3: Game 1 Loser vs. Game 2 Loser, 1:00 p.m.
Game 4: Game 1 Winner vs. Game 2 Winner, 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, June 4
Game 5: Game 3 Winner vs. Game 4 Loser, 1:00 p.m.
Game 6: Game 4 Winner vs. Game 5 Winner, 5:00 p.m.
Monday, June 5
Game 7: Game 4 Winner vs. Game 5 Winner, 7:00 p.m. (if necessary)