NCAA baseball Super Regional field is set
Published 7:40 am Wednesday, June 5, 2024
The 2024 NCAA Baseball Tournament moves into the Super Regional Round this weekend as the four team regionals played to open the tournament produced tons of drama and some huge upsets beginning last Thursday and going through Monday night when defending national champion LSU was eliminated by North Carolina in extra innings.
The No. 1 overall seed, Tennessee, will host the Cinderella of the tournament, Evansville, in Knoxville this weekend. The Vols (53-11) went 3-0 at home to win their regional, which included a 12-3 win in the title game over Southern Miss on Sunday.
The Purple Aces of Evansville (38-24) were seeded fourth in the Greenville, North Carolina region after winning the Missouri Valley Tournament title. Evansville beat host East Carolina 4-1 and VCU 17-11 to stay in the winners’ side of the bracket. ECU won 19-6 on Sunday to set up a winner-take-all game on Monday.
With a 6-5 win on Monday, Evansville became just the ninth four-seed to ever win a regional bracket.
The second-seeded Kentucky Wildcats (43-14) went 3-0 in their regional and will next host the Oregon State Beavers (45-14). Oregon State went 3-0 at home in their regional as well and were seeded as the seventh-best team in the bracket, setting up what should be a closely contested fight for a World Series spot.
The third seed in the bracket is also an SEC team, the Texas A&M Aggies (47-13). Like Tennessee and Kentucky, the Aggies did not lose a game at home in their regional round. The Aggies did have to go to extra innings to beat their rivals from Texas 4-2 on Saturday. TAMU will host the Oregon Ducks (40-18) this weekend in College Station. Oregon was on the road in the opening round, winning a regional at UC-Santa Barbara by beating the home team on Saturday and Sunday to finish 3-0.
North Carolina fans had something to celebrate on Monday as their Tar Heels (45-14) beat LSU 4-3 in 10 innings. LSU had forced the winner-take-all matchup by beating UNC 8-4 on Sunday. North Carolina is the fourth-seeded team and will host West Virginia (36-22) for a Super Regional pairing in Chapel Hill.
It’ll be a battle of orange clad fans when Clemson (44-14) hosts Florida (32-28) this weekend. Clemson, the six seed, went 3-0 at home in the regional round. Florida went to Stillwater, Oklahoma for the opening round and won a slugfest of a region. The Gators took their opener 5-2 over Nebraska before losing 7-1 to host Oklahoma State on Saturday. UF then won two on Sunday to stay alive, beating Nebraska 17-11 and OK State 5-2. The Gators then clinched a spot in the next round with a 4-2 win on Monday over the Cowboys.
The eighth-seeded Florida State Seminoles (45-15) are set to host the upstart Connecticut Huskies (35-24) in Tallahassee this weekend. When you think of UCONN, you usually think of basketball, but on Monday they became the last team to get into the Super Regional round by beating Oklahoma 7-1 on the road. The Huskies beat Duke 4-1 to open the Norman regional and then beat the Sooners 4-1 on Saturday. Oklahoma bounced back with a 6-4 win on Sunday to set up the dramatic finale on Monday. Florida State went 3-0 in their regional round played at home.
The Georgia Bulldogs (42-15) and NCAA career home run leader Charlie Condon waltzed to a 3-0 finish in their opening round regional in Athens. Next up for the Dogs is a home pairing in the Super Regional with North Carolina State. The Wolfpack also went unbeaten in the opening round and are the 15th-seeded team in the initial field of 64.
The 13th-seeded Virginia Cavaliers (44-15) broke the hearts of Mississippi State fans with two straight wins over the Bulldogs to take the Charlottesville regional. Virginia beat the Bulldogs 5-4 on Saturday and 9-2 on Sunday to clinch a spot in the Super Regional round. They’ll next take on the Kansas State Wildcats (35-24). KSU emerged from a wild regional in Fayetteville, Arkansas with a 3-0 record. The Cats, seeded third, beat Louisiana Tech 19-4 on Friday in the opening round. They then won a winner’s bracket battle 7-6 over the host Arkansas Razorbacks on Saturday. Shockingly, it was the fourth-seeded team from Southeastern Missouri to emerge from the loser’s bracket and Kansas State had little trouble with them, winning 7-2 on Sunday to win the regional.