BERKELEY – The California women's tennis team earned an at-large berth to the NCAA Championship tournament and will play Long Beach State in the first round, the NCAA revealed in the Monday selection show for its 64-team field. The 16th-ranked Golden Bears – with a 12-8 record – will face LBSU (17-5) on Friday at 10 a.m. in Malibu, California, with host and sixth-seeded Pepperdine (21-3) playing Fairfield (14-7) at 1 p.m. Friday.
 
"It's always an honor to be selected to this tournament," Cal head coach Amanda Augustus said. "This is what we've trained for all year. I think we were very close to being seeded, and that's a testament to all the work we've put in this year. We'll be going down to a place we're familiar with. Long Beach State just won their conference tournament, so they'll be confident and ready to go. We'll prepare and take it one match at a time. That's what you really need to do to be successful in the NCAA tournament."
 
The 49ers indeed earned an automatic bid into NCAAs as the Big West champion, Pepperdine also earned automatic qualifying as the WCC champ and Fairfield claimed its spot as the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champ.
 
The first-round winners will meet in the second round on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Pepperdine's Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center, with that winner advancing to one of eight super regionals (or rounds of 16) that will take place on May 10 or 11 at a site TBA. The USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida, will host the remainder of the national team tournament from May 17-19. The USTA National Campus will also host the 2019 NCAA singles and doubles tournaments from May 20-25.
 
Please click here for the bracket for the team tournament. For more information on the postseason, please visit this NCAA.com page.
 
Cal is one of seven Pac-12 Conference teams to reach the NCAA team tournament, including defending national champion, current Pac-12 champ and third-seeded Stanford; seventh-seeded and ninth-ranked UCLA; 10th-seeded and 11th-ranked Washington; 13th-seeded and 15th-ranked USC; Washington State; and Arizona State.
 
The Bears have a 6-0 record in the all-time series with Long Beach State, though the two teams haven't played each other since 2009. Cal has a 33-7 record in the all-time series with Pepperdine and hasn't played Fairfield. Cal played Pepperdine in the postseason as recently as 2016, when the top-seeded Bears bested the Waves, 4-2, in the NCAA quarterfinals.
 
Augustus is bringing Cal to its 11th NCAA appearance in her 12 years as head coach at her alma mater. The Bears had their best NCAA showings in the tournament under Augustus, who led them to runner-up finishes in her first two years as head coach in 2008 and 2009. She also led the 2016 Bears to the NCAA semifinals.
 
In Cal's last NCAA appearance in 2017, the Bears hosted NCAA first- and second-round matches at the Hellman Tennis Complex. The Bears defeated San Jose State, 4-0, and then beat LSU, 4-0, to advance to the round of 16 – in which Cal lost to Vanderbilt – in Athens, Georgia.
 
The 2019 Cal squad features three nationally ranked singles players and four nationally ranked doubles teams, based on the most recent Oracle ITA Rankings from April 23, with sophomore Julia Rosenqvist leading the way at No. 1 singles and – with Hana Mraz – at No. 1 doubles. The Swedish star is ranked 41st in singles (22-16 record), while the Mraz/Rosenqvist pair (8-6) is ranked 17th in doubles. Olivia Hauger, a senior co-captain along with Maria Smith, is ranked 47th in singles (23-9) and is part of an 88th-ranked duo with junior Katerina Stloukalova (8-4). Anna Bright (26-10) made a big jump from No. 119 to 74th in the last singles poll, and she and fellow sophomore Jasie Dunk form the nation's 40th-ranked doubles team (15-10). The pair of Mraz and Stloukalova – which is 7-1 but hasn't played together since Jan. 27 – is ranked 63rd. Bright, Hauger and Rosenqvist all competed in the 2018 NCAA Singles Championship.
 
The NCAA will announce the fields for its singles and doubles tournaments on Tuesday.