The UCLA and UC Irvine baseball teams lost their respective conference title games on Sunday and will learn their NCAA tournament opponents on Monday morning, with the Bruins already awarded one of the 16 four-team regionals at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
No. 15 UCLA lost to Nebraska, 5-0, in the Big Ten Tournament championship game in Omaha, Nebraska, while No. 22 UCI lost to Cal Poly, 6-4, in the Big West title game at Cal State Fullerton’s Goodwin Field.
UCLA (42-16), which shared the Big Ten regular-season title with Oregon (42-14) in the teams’ first season in the conference will be the top seed for the Los Angeles Regional. Oregon, and its former Pac-12 rival Oregon State (41-12-1), will also host regionals.
The full 64-team field will be revealed Monday at 9 a.m. PT (ESPN2), with Big West regular-season champ UCI (41-15), Cal Poly (41-17) and likely at-large selection USC (35-21) also waiting to learn where they are headed and who they might meet in the double-elimination regionals.
Ty Horn pitched eight dominant innings and Devin Nunez hit a two-run home run to lead eighth-seeded Nebraska past UCLA on Sunday as the Cornhuskers (32-27) won back-to-back conference tournaments. The Bruins managed just four hits and were shut out for just the second time this season.
Dylan Carey’s RBI-double in the second inning opened the scoring. Still in the second, Case Sanderson scored on a passed ball and Carey scored on a single by Rhett Stokes.
Nunezvs two-run home in the third made it 5-0 and Horn (3-4) continued to shut down the second-seeded Bruins. His toughest inning was the sixth, when a double by Mulivai Levu gave UCLA runners on second and third with one out. Horn responded by striking out the next two batters to end the threat.
Horn went eight innings, allowing three hits with six strikeouts, three walks and one hit batter. Casey Daiss pitched the ninth inning, allowing one hit and striking out two.
UCLA starter Landon Stump (6-1) was charged with three runs in 1⅓ innings. Wylan Moss dominated in relief, retiring all 10 batters he faced over 3⅓ perfect innings. Cal Randall, August Souza, and Justin Lee followed with a scoreless inning each.
Roman Martin had two hits for the Bruins, while AJ Salgado and Levu added one apiece.
UCLA and Oregon shared the regular-season title and fellow newcomers USC and Washington finished fourth and fifth, respectively, but Nebraska defeated Purdue and Michigan State in pool play, then defeated top-seeded Oregon and Penn State on Saturday to reach the championship game.
UCI lost to Cal Poly for the second time in 24 hours in the Big West final.
The Anteaters blew out the Mustangs, 15-3, in seven innings on Friday afternoon, but Cal Poly bounced back to defeat fourth-seeded Hawaii in an elimination game Saturday afternoon and earn another shot at UCI. The Mustangs then hammered the Anteaters, 15-5, in eight innings on Saturday night before outlasting them in Sunday’s rematch.
Cal Poly took an early lead with two runs in the second inning on a Casey Murray RBI triple and a ground out, then tacked on two more runs in the top of the sixth when Murray hit a two-run homer to left field.
UCI tied the score with four runs in the bottom of the sixth, scoring its first run on a throwing error then pulling even on Jacob McCombs’ three-run homer to right field.
The Mustangs went back ahead on Jack Collins’ RBI single through the left side in the seventh and added an insurance run in the ninth on a Dante Vachini sacrifice fly.
Anteaters starting pitcher Finnegan Wall allowed four runs in six innings, scattering five hits and a walk while striking out three. Ricky Ojeda (13-1) took the loss, retiring one batter while allowing a run on two hits and one walk.
Chase Call went 2 for 2 with a walk for UCI, while Frankie Carney went 2 for 5 with a run scored.
SEC SCHOOLS TO HOST EIGHT OF 16 REGIONALS
Southeastern Conference schools were awarded eight of the 16 regional sites on Sunday, tying the record the league set in 2023.
The SEC will have Arkansas (43-13), Auburn (38-18), Georgia (42-15), LSU (43-14), Mississippi (40-19), Tennessee (43-16), Texas (42-12) and Vanderbilt (42-16) playing at home to start the tournament.
Three Atlantic Coast Conference teams are hosts: Clemson (44-16), Florida State (38-14) and North Carolina (42-12). Sun Belt Conference schools Coastal Carolina (48-11) and Southern Mississippi (44-14) join UCLA, Oregon and Oregon State as the other hosts.
Regionals begin Friday and Saturday and run through June 2, with the winners meeting in best-of-three super regionals the following week. Selection of the eight super regional hosts will be announced June 3.
Florida State is hosting a regional for the 37th time, most by any school. FSU, Georgia, North Carolina, Oregon State and Tennessee each hosted in 2024, and Arkansas and Clemson are hosting for a third straight year.
The eight-team College World Series begins June 13 at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska.