After sweeping through with three-straight wins in its own NCAA Gainesville Regional, #9 Gator baseball team (42-20) will host #17 Southern Miss (38-24) in a best-of-three series at McKethan Stadium this weekend. The winner will advance to the NCAA College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, that begins on Saturday, June 13. The Golden Eagles beat host Georgia Tech twice to claim the Atlanta Regional, including a 12-8 victory on Monday in a winner-take-all showdown.

The series opener will be on Saturday at 3pm. Game two will be at 7pm on Sunday on ESPN2, with the third and deciding game to begin at either 1 or 7 pm on Monday if necessary.

Florida and Southern Miss have met just once before on the diamond, a 3-1 victory by the Golden Eagles on April 18, 1990, as part of the Diamond Club Classic in Mobile, Ala. USM is an even 2-2 against Southeastern Conference opponents in 2009, splitting a pair of meetings with Magnolia State rivals Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

The Gators will be making their third Super Regional appearance in school history, all in the past six years. UF was swept in Coral Gables, Fla., in 2004 by Miami and then rebounded the following season to oust Florida State in two games in Gainesville to punch its first ticket to Omaha in seven years. Southern Miss will be playing in the Super Regional round for the first time in school history.

In its Regional opener last Friday, top-seeded Florida rallied from a 7-5 deficit with three runs in the bottom of the ninth to stun fourth-seeded Bethune-Cookman, 8-7. The Gators defeated second-seeded Miami (Fla.), 8-2, in a winner’s bracket matchup on Saturday and then dominated the Hurricanes on Sunday night, 16-5, to secure their seventh Regional title.