Maryland earns berth in 2017 NCAA Tournament

The Maryland Terrapins’ Road to Omaha continues.

The Terps earned a 3-seed in the Winston-Salem Regional, the NCAA announced Monday. The NCAA Regional—which follows a double-elimination format—is hosted by No. 1-seed Wake Forest. The No. 4-seed is UMBC, and the No. 2-seed is West Virginia.

Maryland’s first game will be against No. 2 West Virginia at 2:00 p.m. ET. Maryland Baseball Network will be live at 1:30 p.m. ET with Terps Pregame.

West Virginia and UMBC are both familiar opponents to Maryland. The Terps hosted both the Mountaineers and the Retrievers at Bob “Turtle” Smith Stadium earlier this season. Maryland defeated West Virginia 7-6, and defeated UMBC 6-2.

Maryland finished the season 37-21, 15-9 in Big Ten play, with an RPI of 34. Despite losing its last four regular season series, the Terps reached the Big Ten Tournament semifinals in Bloomington, Indiana. In the Big Ten Tournament, Maryland’s losses came against the teams that made the final, Iowa—the Big Ten Tournament Champion—and Northwestern.

Here’s what Maryland Head Coach John Szefc had to say shortly after the announcement, live from Looney’s Pub in College Park, Md.

With this NCAA Tournament berth, Maryland has clinched a spot in the Field of 64 for the third time in four years after not making the NCAA Tournament since 1971, prior to 2014.

In 2014, the Terps reached the ACC Tournament semifinal and ultimately defeated South Carolina in the first round before falling to Virginia in the Super Regionals. In 2015, the Terps traveled out west to face the No. 1 overall seed UCLA, and upset the Bruins en route to a second-straight Super Regional appearance. But, for the second-straight year, the Terps saw their College World Series dreams end in Charlottesville, Va. against the eventual National Champion Virginia Cavaliers.

Below is the full NCAA Tournament bracket. Click here for an interactive version of the Field of 64.Screen Shot 2017-05-29 at 1.26.22 PM.png