FSU baseball will host an NCAA Regional for the first time since 2018
It's been considered likely for quite a few weeks now, but it became official Sunday night.
The Florida State baseball team will host an NCAA Regional next weekend starting on May 31 for the first time since 2018. The NCAA announced that FSU is one of 16 schools that will host regionals on its NCAA Baseball Twitter/X account Sunday evening.
It's a worthy reward for a remarkable breakthrough season in Link Jarrett's second season leading the Seminoles. After FSU finished with a 23-31 record and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1977 in Jarrett's first season, the Seminoles' win total has nearly doubled this season. They're up to 42-15 after a deep ACC Tournament run this week in Charlotte, their first 40-win season since 2019 and their first time reaching 40 wins before the NCAA Tournament begins since 2018.
It's the 36th time FSU will host a regional and the first time in six years. The longest gap without hosting a regional prior to this drought was two years.
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Unfortunately, FSU will have to wait a little bit longer to find out its seed in the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA announced the host cities in alphabetical order Sunday night to not give anything away about the seeding order.
FSU entered Sunday projected as the No. 7 overall seed according to D1Baseball and the No. 8 overall seed according to Baseball America. Even with Sunday's loss to Duke, FSU is still viewed as a likely lock for a top-eight national seed.
That would be significant for FSU, allowing the Seminoles' entire path to the College World Series in Omaha to go through home games at Dick Howser Stadium.
Although FSU is certainly talented enough to go on the road and win a super regional, this team is 27-4 in home games and 8-10 in true road games this season. So landing in that top eight would certainly be a boost to FSU's odds of making its 24th CWS appearance in program history and its first since 2019.
FSU is one of five ACC teams chosen to host a regional along with Clemson, NC State, North Carolina and Virginia. Despite Duke's run to the ACC title, the Blue Devils will not host a regional.
Additionally, there are five SEC hosts, two from the Big 12, two from the Pac-12, one from the AAC (East Carolina) and one from the Big West (UCSB).
We'll find out where FSU lands when the full NCAA Tournament field is announced on Monday at noon on ESPN2.
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