The state of Mississippi flexed its baseball muscles on Monday as Ole Miss, Mississippi State and the University of Southern Mississippi all received bids to the 2018 NCAA Baseball Tournament in hopes of reaching the College World Series set for Omaha, Neb. on June 16-27.
Ole Miss was awarded a No. 4 National seed by the NCAA, meaning it not only will host a regional this weekend, but should the Rebels win the four-team double-elimination regional they will also host a super regional the following weekend.
While Ole Miss — which won the SEC Tournament with a 9-1 thumping of LSU on Sunday to move to 46-15 on the season — will be playing host to St. Louis University, Tennessee Tech and Missouri State on Friday, USM will travel to Fayetteville to take part in Fayetteville, Ark. regional and Mississippi State makes the trip to Tallahassee, Fla. to take part in the regional hosted by Florida State.
Ole Miss does not play until 6 p.m. on Friday when it takes on St. Louis, while Missouri State and Tennessee Tech play at 2 p.m. Friday's losers will play at 1 p.m. Saturday, while the winners face off at 5 p.m.
The region continues with games at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday. If a winner still has not been decided, a final game will be played Sunday. Ole Miss has gone 28-4 in games played at Swayze Field in Oxford this year.
USM won the Conference USA Tournament with a 12-3 win over Florida Atlantic in Biloxi on Sunday. It was the fourth CUSA tournament title for the Golden Eagles to go with five regular season titles.
USM is the No 2 seed in the Arkansas regional and will open play at 7 p.m. by taking on 40-19 Dallas Baptist. Host Arkansas, 39-18, takes on 38-18 Oral Roberts at 2 p.m. Arkansas is the No. 5 National Seed.
MSU, which went 9-1 against teams ranked in the top 10 this season, enters the Tallahassee regional with a 31-25 record and is the No. 2 seed in the regional.
The Bulldogs are set to take on 36-23 Oklahoma at 11 a.m. on Thursday followed by a FSU (41-17) and Samford (36-24) facing off at 6 p.m.
Saturday's games are set for 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. while Sunday's games are at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. The if necessary game will be at noon on Monday.
