The two Birmingham teams both departed Wednesday for the NCAA baseball regional in Tallahassee, Fla., after securing berths by winning their respective conference tournaments. “It’s pretty cool,” UAB pitcher Dillon Napoleon said. “They’re kind of the cross-town rival, but at the same time it’s good for the city of Birmingham to get both of the teams in, and actually in the same regional too.” It’s the second regional trip for Conference USA’s UAB, which opens Friday against No. 3 national seed Florida State, and first since 1991. The Bulldogs of the Southern Conference have never made it this far. They’ll open with Mississippi State. Meanwhile, the state’s SEC teams Auburn and Alabama aren’t in the field. “We do get looked down on a lot because we’re not one of the big SEC teams, one of the big Division I teams,” Samford pitcher Josh Martin said. “Our team’s just as good. It’s awesome for us to be able to get a chance to show that off and put ourselves in front of the nation and let them see.” The two Birmingham schools are only separated by a 10-minute drive but they’ve used very different formulas to get to Tallahassee. Samford’s Brandon Miller leads the nation with 22 home runs in 234 at-bats. The Blazers (32-28) have topped that total by only one homer in 2074 at-bats. UAB’s .267 team batting average ranks 205th of 291 Division I teams. The Blazers don’t have a player hitting .300, though Keith DePew leads the way at .299. Samford has six above .300. Samford (39-21) ranks 11th nationally in scoring, averaging 7.1 runs a game. The Blazers were still good enough to win the C-USA tournament as a seventh seed, the lowest to ever make the title game. “We’re not a great team,” UAB coach Brian Shoop said. “We don’t have a .300 hitter. We don’t have an all-conference player. We’ve been decimated on the pitching staff with injuries. At the same time, we’re a good, competitive team. “If you look at our numbers last week in the four games, though, there was a turnaround. We played great.” The Bulldogs’ Martin (12-1, 2.96) is tied for the national lead in victories with Arizona State’s Trevor Williams and Texas-Arlington’s Lance Day. Samford coach Casey Dunn said his team wasn’t surprised to be en route to a regional on Wednesday. “I think most of the guys on this bus would tell if you if we weren’t headed to regional today it would be a disappointment,” said Dunn, a former Auburn All-American who played in the 1997 College World Series. The Blazers might have been a bigger surprise. They outscored opponents 26-4 in three C-USA tournament wins while losing 10-3 to East Carolina. “It makes us more confident than you can even believe,” Napoleon said. “We come in there with pretty much no one else having faith in us besides ourselves, and we go out there and shock the conference. We knew we had it in us the whole year. It’s definitely a good time to get hot.” UAB has weathered several key pitching injuries. Normal Saturday starter Ben Bullard (5-5, 2.96) has been out since the final regular season series with a rotator cuff strain and won’t pitch in the regional, Shoop said. Napoleon (5-4, 4.85), formerly the Friday starter, is limited to short stints out of the bullpen with what Shoop described as “forearm tightness.” Michael Busby (5-4, 3.90) is expected to start Friday against Florida State, but is no longer used at the plate because of a sports hernia. Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess. “Our rotation going into the regional is Busby, TBA and TBA,” Shoop said. “We’re not hiding anything. We really don’t know.” The Blazers’ most well-known member is a volunteer assistant coach. Ron Polk, who coached Mississippi State for 29 years, is a College Baseball Hall of Famer who won more games than any SEC coach in any sport. He has worked with Shoop for the past four seasons. “He’s a coach who’s never been married. Baseball players and teams are his family,” said Shoop, a Mississippi State assistant from 1983-89. “He wanted and needed to keep involved and still be involved. Hopefully this has been a nice bridge for him.” — John Zenor McNally resigns as Duke baseball coach