For the 1st time in 5 years, the University of South Carolina baseball team will open NCAA Regional play noon Friday at Founder’s Park against Virginia on ESPN2.

The Gamecocks (33-21) and Cavaliers (29-23) are joined in Columbia by No. 11 national seed Old Dominion and Jacksonville. The Monarchs (42-14) and Dolphins (16-32) will play at 7 pm on ESPN3.

The Columbia Regional is matched up with the Fort Worth Regional when the tournament gets to the Super Regional round.

South Carolina is 1 of 9 SEC teams that are in the field and 1 of 7 serving as home sites.

“We’ll be welcoming three hot teams here to Columbia. Now it’s a matter of who plays the best baseball to advance,” USC coach Mark Kingston said. “Really looking forward to a packed Founders Park.”

Virginia is coming off an ACC Tournament semifinal finish and are led on the mound by Andrew Abbott, who has an 8-5 record with a 2.63 ERA and 136 strikeouts in 89 innings pitched. Old Dominion earned the top seed in the regional after its win in the Conference USA Tournament, defeating Louisiana Tech on their home field.

Kyle Battle leads ODU with 18 home runs on the year. Jacksonville won the Atlantic Sun Tournament, defeating Liberty in the final. Ruben Someillan leads the Dolphins with a .303 batting average.

NCAA Regional booklets are now available to the general public. A booklet includes tickets for all regional games. Booklets are available for $84 each and are sold on a 1st-come, 1st-served basis. Fans purchasing the booklet will secure their actual seat locations at the time of purchase.

Tickets can be purchased online by visiting www.uscsports.com.

Blue Hose make Regional

Another Palmetto State team opening NCAA Regional Play Friday is Presbyterian. Coached by Irmo High School alumnus Elton Pollock, the Big South champion Blue Hose will face top-seed Vanderbilt at 7 pm Friday in Nashville, Tenn.

Commodores’ head coach Tim Corbin led Presbyterian from 1988-93 before becoming an assisant coach at Clemson for 9 seasons. He’s won 793 games at Vanderbilt and led the program to the 2014 College World Series title.