UM and FAU meet up

No. 2-seed Owls and No. 1 ’Canes face foes Friday

’Canes and Owls to face foes in NCAA regional.

CORAL GABLES— The Miami baseball team can look at it fromtwo angles.

The Hurricanes are thrilled about hosting a regional in theNCAAtournamentfor a third straight season.

But they were also paired with perhaps the best No. 2 seed of the 64-team field — Florida Atlantic.

The Hurricanes and Owls will be joined by Long Beach State and Stetson in the double-elimination regional, which begins Friday at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field. Second-seeded FAU (38-17) faces No. 3 Long Beach State (36-20) at 1 p.m., followed by UM (45-11) against No. 4 Stetson (29-29) at 7 p.m.

The Hurricanes, one of 10 Atlantic Coast Conference teams in the field, are the tournament’s overall No. 3 seed, behind Florida and Louisville. Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Mississippi State, Clemson and LSUare the other national seeds that are in line to host super regionals if they advance.

“Any time you’re in the top eight, it’s good,” UM coach Jim Morris said. “The higher you are up, the better it is. This should give you every advantage to go back to Omaha. At the beginning of the year and every year, that is our goal.”

Florida Atlantic, ranked No. 13 by Baseball America, is arguably the best of the No. 2 seeds. TheOwlswon the ConferenceUSA regular season championship but may have cost themselves a chance to host a regional by losing in the conference tournament. They’ve won eight games against ranked opponents this season, including three against teams in the top five.

The Owls, one of four Conference USA teams in the tournament, are led by MLB prospect and conference player of the year C.J. Chatham.

“First, I thought they were going to be a