2021 NCAA Baseball Championship Bracket

UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara have been included in the 2021 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship bracket with regional action to begin on Friday.

The Anteaters (40-16, 32-8 BW) are back in the postseason for the first time since 2014 when they reached the College World Series. UCI is headed to the Stanford Regional for its ninth all-time trip to the postseason in Division I.

UCI will face Nevada in its regional opener at 6:00 p.m. (PT) on ESPN3. The host and No. 9 national seed Cardinal will open competition against North Dakota State at 1:00 p.m.

UCI earned the Big West’s automatic bid to the NCAA’s as the regular season champion. The Anteaters won a school record 32 conference games and reached 40 wins overall for the eighth time as a program.

This is the fourth straight year a Big West representative will compete in a Stanford-hosted regional.

The winner of the Stanford Regional will square off against the winner of the Lubbock Regional, hosted by No. 8 seed Texas Tech, in the Super Regional round. The Lubbock Regional also includes Army, North Carolina and UCLA.

The Gauchos (39-18, 29-11 BW) return to NCAA Regionals for the 11th time as a member of the Big West – and for the fourth time in the last six seasons.

UCSB will meet Oklahoma State to begin regional action in Tucson at 1:00 p.m. (PT) on ESPN3. The host and No. 5 seed Wildcats follow at 7:00 p.m. against Grand Canyon.

Coincidentally, the last time UCSB played either Oklahoma State or Arizona was in the 2016 CWS. The Gauchos lost in both matchups, 1-0 to the Cowboys and 3-0 to the Wildcats.

UCSB established a program record with 29 Big West victories and enters postseason play on an eight-game win streak. The Gauchos are one win away from clinching the program’s ninth 40-win season – and fourth in the last six completed seasons under head coach Andrew Checketts. The 2020 season was canceled in March due to the pandemic.

The Stanford Regional champion will advance to the Super Regionals against the winner of the Starkville Regional. In addition to host and No. 12 seed Mississippi State, Starkville also features Florida State, SEMO and Southern Miss.