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From Staff, Wire Reports

Eight Texas teams, led by No. 6 national seed Rice, earned berths into the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament, committee officials announced Monday.

Joining the Owls, Conference USA regular season champions, from the Lone Star State were regional host and Big 12 regular season champion Texas A&M; Big 12 Tournament champion Texas; Southland Conference Tournament champion Sam Houston State; Mountain West Tournament champion TCU; Conference USA Tournament champion Houston; Southwestern Athletic Conference champion Texas Southern and independent Dallas Baptist.

Miami (47-8) was selected as the top seed for the 64-team for the tournament, while two-time defending champion Oregon State was left out of the field.

The other national seeds, in order, are: North Carolina (46-12), Arizona State (45-11), Florida State (48-10), Cal State Fullerton (37-19), Rice (42-13), LSU (43-16-1) and Georgia (35-21-1).

The winners of each double-elimination regional will advance to the super regionals (best two-of-three series), played June 6-9. The eight winners of the super regionals will play in the College World Series, which starts June 14 in Omaha, Neb.

Rice is hosting a regional at Reckling Park in Houston. The Owls will play Sam Houston State (37-23) at 6 p.m. Friday, while Texas (37-20) plays St. John’s (41-14) earlier at 2 p.m.

It’s the third straight year Rice has received a top-eight seed. It also is the seventh time the Owls have hosted a regional and the 14th straight tournament appearance for Rice.

This is the fifth time for Sam Houston to earn an NCAA bid.

It is the 52nd appearance for the Longhorns, an NCAA record. Texas is 204-100 in the tourney. Texas and St. John’s have met twice, both times at the College World Series. The Longhorns won 7-1 in 1949 en route to their first CWS title and St. John’s return the favor in 1966, 2-0.

Tickets for the Rice Regional are on sale online at RiceOwls.com, or through the Rice Athletic Ticket Office at Rice Stadium. All-session passes are available for $55. Tickets for single games will go on sale on Thursday. Tickets can be purchased in person or over the phone by calling (713) 522-OWLS during normal business hours from Tuesday through Thursday.

Just a few miles west, Texas A&M will be hosting a regional for the seventh time. It is the Aggies 24th appearance in the tournament.

Joining the Aggies (43-16) at Olsen Field in College Station are Dallas Baptist (37-17), Houston (39-22) and Illinois-Chicago (34-20).

Dallas Baptist meets Houston, making its 18th appearance, at 12:30 p.m. Friday, while A&M plays Illinois-Chicago; the Horizon League champion is making its fourth appearance, at 6:30 p.m.

For Dallas Baptist, it’s the Patriots first NCAA Division I bid. First-year coach Dan Heefner led the Patriots to No. 29 in the national RPI rankings.

DBU, which has a long tradition of successful baseball teams including 30 straight winning seasons, is only it its third year of Division I competition. The Patriots are the first independent, other than Miami, to receive make a regional since Cal State Northridge in 1992.

For the A&M regional, reserved all-session tickets are $55 and are available now. They can be purchased in person, over the phone or online at aggieathletics.com. Phone orders may be placed by calling 979-845-2311 or 888-99-AGGIE. Ticket office hours are Tuesday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Season ticket holders who purchased their seats for the regional should receive them in the mail by Thursday. If the tickets do not appear by then, patrons are asked to call the Athletic Ticket Office on Friday morning.

Individual session tickets will go on sale beginning Friday and will run $10 for reserved, $7 for adult general admission and $4 for youth general admission. Tickets may be purchased at either the Kyle Field or Reed Arena box offices beginning at 8 a.m., or at the Olsen Field ticket windows two hours prior to first pitch of either session. Aggie students may purchase tickets on game day for $4.

All-session parking is available through the ticket office for $12 and includes the two main Olsen Field lots and the southeast lot of Reed Arena. Parking will be sold only by phone or in person at the box offices, and must be picked up prior to entry into the parking lots. Daily parking may also be purchased at the lots for $4.

The winner of the Rice Regional will play the winner of the College Station Regional in a super regional for the right to advance to Omaha, Neb., and the College World Series.

TCU will be making its seventh appearance in the tourney. The Horned Frogs will be in Stillwater, Okla., along with host Oklahoma State, Wichita State and Western Kentucky.

TCU (43-17) plays Wichita State (44-15) at 1 p.m. Friday, while Oklahoma State (42-16) meets Western Kentucky (33-25) at 7 p.m.

Texas Southern (16-32) will be making its second NCAA appearance. The Tigers will be playing in the Baton Rouge, La., Regional. TSU plays LSU (43-16-1) at 1 p.m. Friday, while Southern Mississippi (40-20) meets New Orleans (42-19) at 6 p.m.

A year after getting only five berths, the Southeastern Conference led the tournament field with nine, tying its the record it set in 2004 and matched in 2005: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. Arkansas didn’t make it into the eight-team SEC tournament, but the committee was impressed by how competitive the teams were.

“I think the thing about the SEC this year that impressed the committee is their strength of schedule had improved over last year,” Templeton said. “It was the work of the whole year in that conference.”

LSU enters the tournament as the hottest team in the country, riding a 20-game winning streak into their first-round matchup against Texas Southern (16-32).

The ACC (Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Virginia) and Big 12 (Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas A&M) each had six teams selected.

UC Davis, Dallas Baptist, Lipscomb and Mount St. Mary’s are in the tournament for the first time, while Columbia is in the field for the first time since 1976.

California had the most teams with 10 (California, UC Davis, UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton, Fresno State, Long Beach State, Pepperdine, San Diego, Stanford and UCLA).

Texas was next with eight, North Carolina was next with six (Charlotte, East Carolina, Elon, North Carolina, North Carolina-Wilmington, and North Carolina State).