(Omaha, Neb.) The College World Series will be underway tomorrow with some familiar teams and some new ones as well. The SEC has won the last five national titles in the sport and set a new record for the most teams to ever qualify from one conference with 13. However, only two of the 13 teams will be making the trip, excluding the national No. 1 seed Vanderbilt and the No. 2 seed Texas.
This year also marks the first time since 1957 without a repeat participant. The form Pac-12 conference will be represented well, just by other conferences with Arizona representing the Big 12, UCLA representing the Big 10 and Oregon State qualifying as an independent team, as the Pac-12 did not sponsor a baseball season with just Oregon State and Washington State in the conference. Coastal Carolina will be making the trip to Omaha representing the Sun Belt conference looking to win their second national title in the last decade after winning it all in 2016. Louisville will be representing the ACC who had four teams in the CWS last summer, and the biggest underdog of them all Murray State will represent the Missouri Valley Conference.
Murray State won the Oxford regional as the 4 seed, which is the lowest seed a team can be in a regional. The Racers defeated Ole Miss, the host of the regional and runner-up in the SEC Conference Tournament. Murray State got the best of Ole Miss twice, defeating the national No. 10 seed on the opening day of regional play and again in a winner-take-all elimination game to qualify for the super regional where they would take on Duke.
Murray State is not your typical Division 1 powerhouse team with a 10,000 plus capacity stadium. The Racers home field only holds around 800 people with no grandstand. The team who’s head coach is the grounds keeper for the baseball program, mowing the fields, dragging the infield and chalking and painting the field before baseball games. As they went into the super-regional in a best of 3 series, not many people were giving the Racers a shot.
During the first game of the Durham Super-Regional, the Racers fell short against the Blue Devils, dropping the first game 7-4, putting their backs against the wall. In the elimination game for Murray State they were hot with the sticks, beating the Blue Devils 19-9 and forcing another win-or-go-home game for both squads.
The rubber match of these two teams didn’t take long for action, as the visitor in Game 3, Murray State, put up two runs in the top half of the first with a lead-off home run from CF Jonathan Hogart. The Blue Devils would battle back and score one run in three of the first four innings, giving Duke the lead 3-2. In the top of the seventh, Hogart came to the plate for the fourth time of the night when he hit his second home run of the game, tying it 3-3. In the top half of the 8th, Murray State would put up two runs taking the lead 5-3. Duke had some fight left in them as they scored one in the bottom half of the inning, making it 5-4 heading to the ninth. Murray State was held scoreless in the top half of the ninth, putting the pressure on the pitching staff and the defense to see this one out. Then with two outs and runner on first for the Blue Devils, Jake Hyde, who homered earlier for Duke, grounded out to first, sending Murray State to Omaha.
This will be the first time ever that Murray State has made the CWS, coming in as the underdogs. Murray State will take on No. 15 UCLA at 1:00 pm Saturday June 1.
CWS First Round Schedule:
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Jun 13 (Fri) 1:00 PM CTArizona vs. #13 Coastal Carolina
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Jun 13 (Fri) 6:00 PM CTLouisville vs. #8 Oregon State
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Jun 14 (Sat) 1:00 PM CTMurray State vs #15 UCLA
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Jun 14 (Sat) 6:00 PM CT#6 LSU vs. #3 Arkansas
