SAN BRUNO - The 2026 West Coast Conference Baseball Tournament champions Saint Mary's heard its name called into the NCAA Tournament during Monday's selection show. The Gaels' berth is the 76th in the history of West Coast Conference Baseball. 

Saint Mary's will compete in the Los Angeles Regional to open the tournament against No. 1 overall seed UCLA on Friday at noon on ESPNU. The Gaels will be joined in Los Angeles with Cal Poly and Virginia Tech who will face each other in the other first-round game in the regional. 

SMC is 26-20 all-time vs. UCLA and 6-16 all-time vs Cal Poly (since Cal Poly elevated to the Division I level). The Gaels and Mustangs most recently split a four-game series in 2019. SMC has never played Virginia Tech before.

The Gaels will be making their second straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament after competing in the Corvallis Regional last year, defeating host Oregon State in the first game of the regional. In 2016, after winning the West Coast Conference Baseball Tournament Championship, Saint Mary's headed to the Raleigh Regional, battling Coastal Carolina and Navy. 

In this past weekend's West Coast Conference Tournament, the No. 5 seed Gaels defeated No. 3 seed San Francisco, going to the if-necessary game for the second straight year. The Gaels became the second West Coast Conference team to become back-to-back conference tournament champions in league history (Pepperdine in 2014 and 2015). 

The NCAA Baseball Regionals will take place from May 29 - June 1, followed by the NCAA Super Regionals the following weekend before the NCAA College World Series will be held in Omaha, Neb., from June 12-22.