The Stanford baseball team is the No. 1 seed in the Palo Alto Regional and will open their run to Omaha against the No. 4 seed Fresno State Bulldogs on Friday night.
Stanford (38-16) finished tied for fourth place in the Pac-12 with an 18-12 conference record, while Fresno State (30-26) finished fifth in the WAC with an 8-10 conference mark.
The other game on Friday in the Palo Alto Regional pits No. 2 seed Pepperdine against No. 3 seed Michigan State.
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SIGN UP HERE The winner of Stanford-Fresno State and Pepperdine-Michigan State will meet on Saturday, with the victor advancing to the championship game of the regional.
Because it is a double elimination format, whichever team wins their first two games needs to be beaten twice in the championship round.
The winner of the Palo Alto Regional will move on to the Super Regional and play a three-game series against the winner of the Tallahassee Regional, where the host Florida State Seminoles are the favorite.
The NCAA Tournament in baseball is comprised of 64 teams broken up into 16 regionals of four teams each.
NCAA
The winner of each regional advances to the Super Regional round (equivalent of the Sweet 16 in basketball) and plays a three-game series against the winner of another regional. The winner of each of the eight Super Regionals advance to the College World Series in Omaha.
The CWS is then an eight-team, double elimination tournament.