Regionals Recap: Part 1
Vanderbilt is done, Oregon State lives, and Coastal Carolina looks like a wrecking ball.
The college baseball season is underrated, and the tournament that follows it is the most under appreciated in all North American sports. As I discussed in my tournament preview last week, the College World Series and the rounds that precede it provide some of the most entertaining sports moments of the year.
This year’s tournament has been no different. Upsets have been common occurrences all around the bracket, with top team after top team falling. Let’s just look at the numbers:
Seven out of the 16 regional hosts failed to advance.
Of the 13 SEC teams that entered the field, only four won their regional (Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, and Tennessee).
The ACC, which produced nine tournament teams, has five schools going to the next round (North Carolina, Florida State, Duke, Louisville, Miami).
Two Big 12 schools, West Virginia and Arizona, advanced. TCU, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Cincinnati, and Arizona State couldn’t make their conference proud.
Five four-seeds (Wright State, Columbia, Saint Mary’s, Utah Valley, and Little Rock) won games against the top teams in their regional.
Those are just some of the figures that illustrate how dramatic this past weekend of baseball was. If you don’t believe me, take the internet’s word for it. All across the World Wide Web, people were discussing how this was one of, if not the best, regional rounds that we’ve seen in a long time.
So, let’s break it all down in Part 1 of my Regionals Recap.
Nashville Regional
Whoa.
In my post last week projecting and predicting the outcomes of every regional, I said that Louisville was going to be the team to advance out of Nashville. That ended up being a correct read (one that I’ll admit was based on a totally bogus reason). The way the regional wound up getting to that point, however, was nothing short of shocking.
If you had told me that Vanderbilt, the number one overall seed in the tournament, would bow out before even reaching the regional final, I would’ve probably left the room laughing my face off. It was such a ridiculous proposition to even think about, but man, it happened, and it was weird.
Did Louisville’s path become much easier the second that Vanderbilt lost to Wright State on Sunday afternoon? Absolutely. Don’t forget, though, that Louisville still had to get through the barrier that was the Commodores, as their win over the hosts on Saturday was the sole reason that Vanderbilt found itself in the loser’s bracket.
Wright State deserves a lot of credit for its performance over the weekend. The Raiders were nine outs away from beating Vanderbilt on Friday evening, only to choke it away the second that head coach Alex Sogard decided to pull starting pitcher Cam Allen, who was throwing a no-hitter at the time of his exit. That gut punch of a game didn’t get them down, and they bounced back in their next two games, winning 7-5 against East Tennessee State, and then getting revenge on the Commodores the next day. They’re a great story, and it’s kind of a shame that they didn’t get a chance to extend their season to this weekend.
Alas, Louisville won the gauntlet and is two wins away from Omaha.
Hattiesburg Regional
Of all the regionals this weekend, this is the one that I probably got the least amount of eyes on. None of the teams in this part of the bracket particularly interested me, but even then, an entertaining weekend of baseball was played down in Hattiesburg.
Southern Mississippi is a top-tier mid-major program. Year in and year out, they find themselves near the top of the college baseball pantheon. So, when they lost their opening game to Columbia of all schools, the alarm bells started going off.
Combine that shocking loss with Alabama’s defeat to Miami (FL) on the same day and you got yourself a major crisis. If you were paying attention to the ACC Tournament, then you’ll remember that Miami got run-ruled by California to end their run in that bracket. That loss left the Hurricanes’ hopes in the hands of the selection committee, who then graciously awarded them a bid in the Hattiesburg Regional.
Miami would take full advantage of that opportunity. After beating Alabama, the Hurricanes cruised against Columbia, beating them 14-1. That then set up a matchup with Southern Mississippi, who had rallied back after their opening loss to make it back to the regional final. And when the Golden Eagles killed Miami 17-6 to force a win-or-go-home game on Monday, it appeared the Hurricanes’ hopes of making a Cinderella run were down in the dumps.
It wasn’t. Miami slayed the host team in the finale, winning 5-4 to advance to face Louisville in a Super Regional matchup that nobody saw coming.
Corvallis Regional
I wrote a lot about the Corvallis Regional from a TCU perspective on Sunday morning, so go check that out before reading the rest of this piece.
In terms of every other team in the regional, man, was it competitive. USC put up a heck of a fight for a team that barely made the field, and Saint Mary’s certainly has a lot to be proud of. But putting up a fight and being proud doesn’t necessarily equate to wins, and in the case of the Trojans and Gaels, they both fell victim to the mighty beast that is Oregon State.
The Beavers lost their opening game of the regional to Saint Mary’s, and honestly, it was looking like they were going to be just one of many hosts this past weekend that couldn’t find a way to advance. Against all odds, though, Oregon State fought its way out of the loser’s bracket, beating TCU, Saint Mary’s, and then USC twice to move on to the next round.
According to PEAR Analytics, the Beavers’ journey through the Corvallis Regional was the second most difficult of the 16 teams that advanced to the supers. Only Murray State, who I’ll talk about later, had a more difficult trek.
Oregon State’s entire athletic department is one of the most underrated stories in all of collegiate sports. The university was left for dead when the Pac-12 decided to not exist anymore, and it has consistently had to find ways to survive over the past year and a half. In baseball, it had to make a schedule from scratch, a task that I have to imagine was extremely difficult. Prior to the regional this past weekend, the Beavers had only played 19 games in Corvallis all season. Luckily for the team and its fans, there will be at least two more games at Goss Stadium before this season is said and done.
Tallahassee Regional
Can I be frank real quick? I’m really upset that Northeastern didn’t find a way to come out of Tallahassee unscathed.
Coming into the postseason, the Northeastern Huskies had won 27 games in a row. 27! In my regional preview, I picked the Huskies for this exact reason. How could I discount such a large sample size of winning?
Maybe I should’ve. The moment that the lights got bright and the Huskies had to face a team with a bunch of good players, in this case Mississippi State, they crumbled. Mississippi State won 11-2, and it was on to the loser’s bracket.
But Northeastern isn’t the story of the Tallahassee Regional. How could it be when it was Florida State, the host, that easily swept its way through its own regional. The Seminoles beat Bethune-Cookman on Friday, made a statement against Mississippi State on Saturday, and then took care of business against the Bulldogs again on Sunday. Bing, boom, pow. Three games, three wins. Easy peasy.
Shoutout to Northeastern, though. Wish it could’ve been done. Oh well.
Chapel Hill Regional
Carolina Blue will forever and always be the best color on the planet. Perhaps that’s why North Carolina won the Chapel Hill Regional? I certainly think so.
The Tar Heels utilized fantastic pitching by ACC Pitcher of the Year Jake Knapp and Jason DeCaro through their first two games of the regional, before having to fight hard against Oklahoma in the regional final. The Sooners, whom Carolina had beaten on Saturday, came out of the loser’s bracket and defeated the Tar Heels 9-5 to force a finale on Monday afternoon.
Doubts could’ve set in within the North Carolina dugout that maybe a choke was imminent. If any worries did end up surfacing following the loss, then it all vanished pretty quickly once the game on Monday commenced.
North Carolina scored three in the first, four in the third, and another in the fourth. Three more in the eighth, with another trio of runs coming across in the ninth, completed a 14-4 blowout of the Sooners where the Tar Heels recorded 17 hits. Sometimes when the lights get bright, the bats can tend to shrivel up. That was definitely not the case in Chapel Hill, and the Tar Heels are better off for it.
Eugene Regional
There were several surprising outcomes during the weekend, but Arizona’s “upset” advancement in the Eugene Regional was not one of them for me.
Yes, Arizona was not the host. Oregon was. But if you just look at the results, then that doesn’t make any sense at all.
The Ducks were out after just two games, losing to Utah Valley (who?) and Cal Poly (excuse me?) to end their season. Meanwhile, Arizona was rocking and rolling its way toward a sweep. Cal Poly? Nah, that’s light work. Utah Valley? Even easier! Cal Poly again? How about a 14-0 shutout win? Yeah, that sounds right.
Sure, I picked this result and thought it was going to happen, but I didn’t think that Arizona would be able to get through this regional without even having to face the host. It’s mind-boggling to me that Oregon managed to biff this so badly. Huh, I wonder what it’s like for your favorite school’s season to end after just two games in a regional? Never happened to me before.
Arizona’s going to be a real tough out for North Carolina this weekend. If the Tar Heels even think for just a little bit that Arizona will be an easy beat, then they better prepare themselves for a beating.
Auburn Regional
I’ll breeze through these next two regionals because, honestly, there’s not much to say.
Auburn was far and away the best team among NC State, Stetson, and Central Connecticut. The fact that anybody would even consider not picking them to advance out of that foursome is ludicrous to me. I mean, who would even do such a thing? (Ignore anything that I wrote about Auburn last week.)
Of all the teams here, it was Central Connecticut, the four-seed, that gave the Tigers the biggest fight. The first two innings of that game on Friday were a bloodbath. Pitchers couldn’t find the strike zone to save their lives, and hitters were teeing off on anything and everything. But Central Connecticut just couldn’t find that next level, which allowed Auburn to do its thing en route to a 9-5 win.
Stetson was next, and the Hatters put up pretty much zero resistance. Actually, no. At least they put up a little bit of a fight, which I can’t say was the case for NC State. The Wildcats have been a tournament darling for several years now, and I saw some people picking them to make a little bit of a run this season. It was not to be. Auburn put on a clinic in the regional final, winning 14-1.
Not much else to say. Auburn’s got itself a pretty good baseball team, along with some fairly sick uniforms.
Conway Regional
Coastal Carolina might have a thing or two to say about who has the best uniforms in the land. Teal is just such a majestic color to put on a baseball jersey.
The Conway Regional was named the “Group of Death” by many. Florida, East Carolina, and Fairfield were all formidable opponents for Coastal. There were no doubts that it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, but it also wasn’t that hard either.
The Chanticleers, which is a fun and unique mascot that doesn’t necessarily inspire fear in opponents but still gives off a somewhat menacing vibe, beat Fairfield 10-2 on Friday, defeated East Carolina in an 18-7 rout on Saturday, and then won a 1-0 pitcher’s duel on Sunday to advance. The “Group of Death” was dispatched in three games. I think Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall has to be proud of that.
By the way, he runs a really good program down there. People forget that Coastal Carolina won a national championship in 2016 and has been a contender pretty much every season since. It takes a lot of hard work to build up a mid-major program to the levels that Coastal is at right now, and I think that accomplishment should be commended more often than it is.
Auburn and Coastal Carolina is a juicy matchup this weekend. I’ll be watching, and you should too.
SethStack is going to be filled to the brim with college baseball content for the foreseeable future, with Part 2 of the Regionals Recap coming out tomorrow, followed by a preview and prediction piece about the Super Regionals on Friday morning. Stay tuned for all of that.
If you didn’t catch any of my previous posts regarding the college baseball postseason, you can read it all at the links below:
