May 23, 2006

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PUSHING ON TO THE POSTSEASON – The Notre Dame baseball team (41-14-1, 21-5-1 BIG EAST), ranked as high as 18th in the nation, looks to extend its unprecedented run of BIG EAST Tournament titles to five this week at Bright House Networks Field in Clearwater, Fla. … ND in 2003 became just the second team ever to repeat as the BIG EAST Tournament champ before being the first to win three straight in ’03 … the top-seeded Irish will face #8 seed and local team South Florida in the final 1st-round game of the double-elimination tournament on Tuesday, May 23 (8:00 p.m.) … St. John’s and West Virginia (as respective 4th and 5th seeds) will join ND and USF in the same bracket of the eight-team tournament (the winners of the two brackets meet in the May 27 championship game) … soph. LHP Wade Korpi will start vs. USF while jr. RHP Jeff Samardzija is the game-2 starter on May 24 (vs. WVU or SJU; game will be at 7:00 if ND wins game-1 and at 1:00 if ND loses its opening game) … the Irish – who have reached 40 wins in 17 of the past 18 seasons – are in the midst of playing in four cities over the span of just 11 days … ND also won regular-season BIG EAST titles in 1997, ’99, 2001, ’02, and ’04

** See PDF for complete pre-tournament notes **