Four teams from the Southeastern Conference and four from the Atlantic Coast Conference won regionals in the NCAA tournament on Sunday and will take the next step in their bids to reach the Men’s College World Series.
The Pac-12 will have its final baseball season extended at least another week with Oregon winning three straight games as a No. 3 regional seed. West Virginia, whose coach will retire after the season, made it to the super regionals for the first time and joined Kansas State as Big 12 teams to win regionals.
The best-of-three supers begin Friday and Saturday and will determine the eight teams that advance to the MCWS, which begins June 14 in Omaha, Nebraska. The NCAA will announce super regional sites on Tuesday, but it’s rare for the higher-seeded team to not host.
No. 1 national seed Tennessee hit five homers in a 12-3 win over Southern Mississippi and will head to the super regionals for a fourth consecutive year. The Volunteers will play East Carolina or Evansville with a third trip to the MCWS in four years, and second straight, at stake.
No. 2 Kentucky beat Indiana State 5-0 to make the supers a second straight year. The Wildcats will play Oregon State or UC Irvine.
No. 3 Texas A&M beat Louisiana-Lafayette 9-4 and returned to supers for the second time in three years under Jim Schlossnagle. The Aggies will be matched against Oregon, which beat UC Santa Barbara 3-0.
No. 7 Georgia, down three runs early, beat Georgia Tech 8-6 in 10 innings to reach the super regionals for the first time since 2008 after Kolby Branch hit a tying homer in the ninth. The Bulldogs will play No. 10 North Carolina State, which beat James Madison 5-3 to make its deepest run in the tournament since 2021, when the Wolfpack were removed from the MCWS because of a COVID-19 outbreak on the team.
Clemson, Florida State and Virginia joined NC State as regional winners from the ACC.
No. 6 Clemson beat Coastal Carolina 12-5 to reach the supers for the first time since 2010 under second-year coach Erik Bakich. The Tigers likely will host Oklahoma State or Florida in the next round.
No. 8 Florida State defeated UCF 12-4 and is in supers for the first time since 2019 under second-year coach Link Jarrett. The Seminoles will play Oklahoma or UConn.
No. 12 Virginia is in the super regionals for the third time in four years after a 9-2 win over Mississippi State. The Cavaliers are in line to host Kansas State, a No. 3 regional seed from the Big 12 that beat Southeast Missouri State 7-2 to reach its first super regional since 2013.
West Virginia, a No. 3 regional seed like its conference mate K-State, beat No. 4 regional seed Grand Canyon 10-6 and will play North Carolina or LSU. The Mountaineers’ coach, Randy Mazey, announced last summer that he would retire after this season.
There will be four winner-take-all finals on Monday.
Defending national champion LSU forced a second final against No. 4 North Carolina with an 8-4 victory over the Tar Heels. East Carolina and Evansville will meet again after the Pirates beat the upstart Purple Aces 19-6.
No. 9 Oklahoma and UConn will meet again after the Sooners staved off elimination with a 6-4 win, and Florida stayed alive with a 5-2 win over No. 11 Oklahoma State.
Oregon State’s game against UC Irvine in Corvallis, Oregon, was suspended in the fourth inning because of rain. The game will resume Monday with the Beavers leading 6-4. The Beavers advance if they hold on to win; otherwise the teams will play again.
HIDDEN BALL TRICK
Clemson pulled out the old hidden ball trick against Coastal Carolina in the second inning, and it worked.
After Coastal runner Dean Mihos took third on a bunt, third baseman Blake Wright got the ball, walked toward pitcher Ethan Darden and fake-dropped it into his glove. Wright continued on to his position and when the unaware Mihos took his lead off the base, Wright made a quick move to tag him.
STUDENT BEATS TEACHER
No. 5 Arkansas became the highest-seeded team eliminated with its 6-3 loss to Southeast Missouri State.
The Redhawks have made three of the last four NCAA tournaments, but reached a regional final for the first time. To get there, coach Andy Sawyers beat one of his mentors in Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn.
Sawyers was a backup catcher on Van Horn’s first team at Nebraska in 1998 and was his volunteer assistant in 2000. He said he thanked Van Horn after the game for modeling how to be a good coach.
“I was a little emotional,” Sawyers said. “I had some tears in my eyes behind the sunglasses because I got to beat my coach today, and that doesn’t happen very often, so that was a pretty cool moment.”
The Razorbacks’ stay in the tournament was their shortest in 14 appearances since 2008, when they went 0-2.
FLIP IT GOOD
Louisiana-Lafayette’s Jose Torres executed one of the great bat flips of the year when he homered off the scoreboard in left-center field in the eighth inning of the Ragin’ Cajuns’ 10-2 win over Texas.
As Torres finished his swing, he let go of the bat in the same motion and sent it flying along the third-base line. He spit, took a couple steps while admiring what he had done and started his trot.
BIG BATS
Cal Stark hit a pair of homers against Southern Miss, and his ninth-inning blast gave Tennessee a program-record 159 for the season. … Brendan Jones drove in three runs with two singles as Kansas State built an early 7-0 lead against Southeast Missouri State. … Light-hitting Luke Nowak, who had East Carolina’s game-winning hit against Wake Forest on Saturday, hit one of the Pirates’ four homers against Evansville. … Alec Makarewicz and Noah Soles each homered for NC State against James Madison.
MOUND MARVELS
Jay Woolfolk, making his first start since March 17, pitched eight innings for the longest outing of his career and allowed two runs in Virginia’s 9-2 win over Mississippi State. Woolfolk also had a career-best seven strikeouts. … Mason Moore and two relievers combined on the five-hit shutout, with 11 strikeouts, against Indiana State. … Clemson’s Reed Garris earned the win against Coastal Carolina with a career-high three innings of relief.
