After a decade hiatus, NCAA Regional baseball is finally headed back to Dudy Noble Field. Mississippi State University will host a 2013 NCAA Baseball Regional at Starkville, we learned tonight as the 16 Regional host sites were announced by the NCAA. The four-team regional, to be Friday, May 31 to Monday, June 3 here at Dudy Noble Field/Polk-DeMent Stadium is one of 16 first-round tournament sites.
Mississippi State will play the 7 p.m. game on Friday against the No. 4 seed in the regional.
The four-team, double-elimination regionals begin Friday at the 16 campus sites nationwide. In addition to Mississippi State, SEC schools LSU, Vanderbilt and South Carolina are to host Regionals. The other host schools include North Carolina, Virginia, Oregon St., Cal St. Fullerton, N. Carolina St., Oregon, Florida St., UCLA, Indiana, Louisville, Kansas St., and Virginia Tech.
The 2013 NCAA Regional at Starkville will be the 12th regional baseball tournament hosted on the MSU campus. The first hosting experience dating back to 1979, where MSU saw victory until being defeated by Pepperdine in game 10 of the College World Series.
Up until last year, Mississippi State held the NCAA Regional Single-Game Attendance Record at 11,496. For total attendance during a Regional series, LSU holds the top spot at 67,938 in 1998.
With the 16 hosts sites now known, the other 48 teams will await to hear if their names are called tomorrow at 11a.m. when the full field of 64 teams is announced on ESPNU.