SoCon Baseball Tournament champion Georgia Southern and regular season champion Elon have both earned bids to the 2009 NCAA Baseball Championship. Play begins on Friday.

Elon (40-16) was chosen as the number two seed in the Atlanta Regional, where it will face Southern Miss at 3 p.m. ET on Friday. Georgia Tech (No. 1 seed) and Georgia State (No. 4 seed) are also playing in Atlanta.

Georgia Southern (42-15), which swept through the Southern Conference Tournament over the weekend, was rewarded with the two seed in the Fullerton Regional. GSU will open play against No. 3 seed Gonzaga at 6 p.m. ET (3 p.m. PT) on Friday. Cal State Fullerton (No. 1 seed) and Utah (No. 4 seed) will compete in the other opening-round game. Cal State Fullerton is the No. 2 national seed.

All regionals are double-elimination events with the winner advancing to next weekend’s Super Regionals, which put teams one step away from the College World Series in Omaha.

This marks the fifth time in the past six seasons that two teams have represented the SoCon in the baseball postseason. College of Charleston was the last league team to win a regional in 2006, as it advanced from the Lexington Regional to the Super Regional phase of the event.