Florida Gators earn national seed for NCAA baseball tournament
· Yahoo Sports
GAINESVILLE — The red-hot Florida baseball team will have chance to get back to the College World Series playing on the Gators’ home field.
Coach Kevin O’Sullivan’s squad was awarded the No. 8 national seed in the 64-team NCAA Tournament. The Gainesville Regional opens with Florida (39-19) against Rider (33-18) at 1 p.m. Friday, followed by Miami (38-18) versus Troy (32-29) at 6.
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Winners of 10 of their last 12 games and featuring a nation-best 15-7 record against top-25 opponents, the Gators will host a Super Regional if they prevail during the double-elimination series.
Florida, ranked ninth by Baseball America and No. 11 in the RPI, closed the regular season by winning three straight SEC series. UF then reached the conference tournament semifinals before squandering a 6-0 lead during an 8-7 loss to fourth-ranked Georgia.
The Gators have hosted a regional 13 times under O’Sullivan and reached the NCAA Tournament in each of his 19 seasons in Gainesville.
SEC Pitcher of the Year Aidan King, who is 8-2 with a 2.48 ERA and 89 strikeouts in 84 innings, anchors the Gators’ staff. Outfielder Blake Cyr, a senior who transferred from Miami in 2024, and sophomore third baseman Ethan Surowiec are the team’s two leading hitters and earned spots on the SEC All-Tournament team.
Cyr was 9-for-13 (.692) and had 19 total bases, while hitting two home runs, two doubles and a triple, while scoring six runs in the SEC Tournament. He leads Florida with a .338 batting average while hitting 13 homers, 15 doubles, 56 RBI and scoring 50 runs.
Surowiec was 6-for-12 with a homer, two doubles and four runs during the conference tournament. He leads Florida with 61 RBI and has 11 home runs, 14 doubles and 51 runs.
Rest of the national seeds
UCLA was rewarded for its dominant wire-to-wire run through the baseball regular season with the No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.
The Bruins (51-6), who swept the Big Ten Conference regular-season and tournament titles, were No. 1 by Baseball America in each of its weekly rankings since the preseason and has the most wins entering regionals since Tennessee came in with 53 in 2022.
Georgia Tech (48-9), which swept the ACC championships, is the No. 2 national seed followed by Georgia (46-12), Auburn (38-19), North Carolina (45-11-1), Texas (40-13), Alabama (37-19) and Florida.
Seeds Nos. 9 through 16: Southern Mississippi (44-15), Florida State (38-17), Oregon (40-16), Texas A&M (39-14), Nebraska (42-15), Mississippi State (40-17), Kansas (42-16) and West Virginia (39-14).
Florida has the longest active streak with 18 straight appearances.
The Tallahassee Regional has FSU against St. John’s at 3 Friday, followed by Coastal Carolina versus Northern Illinois at 8.
UCF (31-21) is in the Auburn Regional and opens against N.C. State at 6.
The Associated Press’ Eric Olson contributed to this report.