LSU draws UC Irvine in NCAA Regional

BATON ROUGE – The Southeastern Conference Tournament Champion LSU baseball team will travel to Los Angeles for the NCAA Regional.

The Tigers will face 2008 Super Regional foe UC Irvine in the opening game Friday, June 4.

“Quite frankly, I was a little surprised,” LSU coach Paul Maineri said. “The only negative for me is for our fans. It might be a little more difficult for some of them to travel because it would be an airplane trip now. That breaks my heart because they’ve given us such great support all year long and I wish they could be there with us. They’re a very vital part to our success.”

Tentative game times are 4 p.m. central for LSU-UC Irvine, and 8 p.m. for UCLA-Kent State, then 4 and 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. If a game 7 is necessary, it will be played Monday at 8 p.m.

LSU (40-20) takes to the road for the NCAA’s double-elimination, four-team regional round for the first time. In 1989, LSU traveled to College Station, Texas, for an eight-team regional and defeated Texas A&M, 5-4 in 11 innings, to advance to the College World Series.

June 4-7, Los Angeles

Friday, June 4

Game 1: UC Irvine (37-19) vs. LSU (40-20) (4 p.m.)

Game 2: UCLA (43-13) vs. Kent State (39-23) (8 p.m.)

Saturday, June 5

Game 3: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser (4 p.m.)

Game 4: Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner (8 p.m.)

Sunday, June 6

Game 5: Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 loser (4 p.m.)

Game 6: Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner (8 p.m.)

Monday, June 7

Game 7: Game 6 winner vs. Game 6 loser (if necessary) (8 p.m.)