Super regionals feature five first-timers
A Tennessee Tech team that boasts the nation’s most high-powered offense relied on its pitching to earn the biggest win in program history Monday night.
The Golden Eagles of the Ohio Valley Conference knocked No. 4 national seed Mississippi out of the NCAA Tournament by beating the Rebels twice, 15-5 in the afternoon and 3-2 to clinch the Oxford Regional title. Tech joins Duke, Minnesota, Stetson and Washington as teams that will make their first appearances in the super regionals this week. Winners in those eight best-of-three series advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., starting June 16.
Duke won the Athens Regional on Monday with two wins over No. 8 national seed Georgia. No. 1 overall seed and defending national champion Florida, Mississippi State and South Carolina also advanced, giving the Southeastern Conference six teams in supers. Eight of the 16 national seeds were eliminated in regionals, including four of the top eight.
Tennessee Tech, a No. 2 regional seed, has put up some of the college game’s biggest offensive numbers in years this season, but it was the pitching of closer-turned-starter Ethan Roberts in the afternoon and Devin Lancaster and Nick Osborne at night that carried the Golden Eagles against Ole Miss.
“Everyone talks about our offense, but our pitchers can pitch, too,” said Trevor Putzig, whose homer tied it 2-2 in the sixth.
Lancaster went the first 5⅓ innings, allowing two runs on four hits. Osborne came on to start the seventh after playing the first six innings in right field and allowed two hits the rest of the way to make Kevin Strohschein’s seventh-inning sacrifice fly stand up. In the first game, Roberts, normally the closer, made his second start in 63 appearances and went a career-long 7⅔ innings before leaving the game with a 10-2 lead.
Coming through the losers’ bracket, Duke won a regional for the first time since 1961. Duke coach Chris Pollard took over in 2012, and the Blue Devils have reached at least 30 wins five straight years. They ended a 55-year NCAA Tournament drought in 2016, and Monday they completed a difficult trek in regionals that saw them come from behind to win in three games as the No. 2 regional seed after losing 6-0 to Troy on Friday. Duke beat Georgia 8-5 in the afternoon before locking up the regional title with an 8-4 win.
Florida lost 7-4 to Florida Atlantic in the afternoon in the Gainesville Regional, forcing a winner-take-all second game the Gators won 5-2. Mississippi State defeated Oklahoma for the second time in two days in Tallahassee, Fla., and is in a super regional for the third straight year.
South Carolina opened SEC play 1-5 and dealt with a number of injuries before it got hot the second half of the season. The Gamecocks went 3-0 in the Greenville (North Carolina) Regional, coming from behind to beat Ohio State, knocking off No. 12 national seed East Carolina and beating No. 4 regional seed UNC-Wilmington 8-4 in the final Monday.
Super regional lineup
Auburn (42-21) at Florida (45-18); Stetson (48-11) at North Carolina (41-18); Minnesota (44-13) at Oregon State (47-10-1); Cal State Fullerton (35-23) vs. Washington (33-23), site TBA; Vanderbilt (34-25) vs. Mississippi State (35-26), site TBA; Duke (44-16) at Texas Tech (42-17); South Carolina (3624) at Arkansas (42-18); Tennessee Tech (52-10) at Texas (40-20).