Penn to play top-seed Auburn in NCAA baseball regional on Friday

Penn’s baseball team is headed to Alabama for its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1995.

The Ivy League champion Quakers were announced Monday as the fourth seed in the Auburn Regional, hosted by Auburn at its home diamond, Plainsman Park. Penn (32-14) will match up first against top-seeded Auburn (34-21-1) on Friday (7 p.m., ESPN+).

Other opponents at the Auburn Regional are second-seeded Southern Miss (41-17) and third-seeded Samford (36-23), who will also play on Friday (2 p.m., ESPN+). The winner of the Penn-Auburn game will meet the winner of the Southern Mississippi-Samford matchup, while the losers of each contest will play an elimination game.

The winners of each of the 16 regionals will move on to the super regional round, where teams will be split into eight pairs for a best-of-three series. The final eight teams standing will advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

Since the NCAA Tournament was changed to its current format in 1999, two teams seeded fourth in the regional round have advanced to the College World Series: Fresno State in 2008, the ultimate title winner, and Stony Brook in 2012.

Auburn is hosting a regional round for the second consecutive year. In 2022, the Tigers advanced to the super regional where they lost to Oregon State.

» READ MORE: What’s propelled No. 1 Penn baseball to the top of nearly every Ivy League stat? Pitching.

This marks Penn’s sixth appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The Quakers have a 3-10 overall record in tournament games, and have never advanced past the regional round. In Penn’s latest trip in 1995, it also matched up with Auburn in the opening game and lost, 2-1. The Quakers were then eliminated by Indiana State, 6-5.