Kansas received the draw for the first-ever Lawrence Regional as part of Monday morning’s NCAA selection show, and it should make for quite a competitive few days at Hoglund Ballpark.
The Jayhawks will host No. 2 seed Arkansas, No. 3 seed Missouri State and No. 4 seed Northeastern. Play begins in a double-elimination format on Friday with KU facing Northeastern at 12 p.m. and Arkansas taking on Missouri State at 5 p.m., and will continue through the weekend with a possible seventh game on Monday depending on results.
“Well, I think at this point it’s 64 unbelievable teams that have all played really good baseball,” KU coach Dan Fitzgerald said. “So it doesn’t really matter who you play. I think where you play certainly matters in this case.
“It’s a super challenging draw. Northeastern, coach (Mike) Glavine, it’s a great program, they steal a ton of bases, they’re a dynamic offense and they just have a super awesome winning tradition. And then Missouri State and Arkansas, certainly two awesome teams.”
KU received the No. 15 overall seed nationally, meaning that if it advances out of Lawrence, it will be paired with the winner of the Atlanta Regional hosted by No. 2 Georgia Tech (which also includes Oklahoma, The Citadel and UIC).
“Unbelievable first-world problem to be worried about what seed you are in the NCAA Tournament as a host site,” Fitzgerald said. “When you look at the field and you look at all 16, it’s a really, really deep field.”
Not much separates the Jayhawks from the Razorbacks, who had played themselves into fringe hosting consideration with a strong conclusion to SEC play, or even in fact from the Bears, as KU, Arkansas and Missouri State are Nos. 19, 21 and 23 in RPI. Northeastern, which won the CAA tournament, is No. 88.
The No. 15 ranking was a few spots lower than most projections had KU after it successfully followed up its Big 12 regular-season title with a tournament title by beating West Virginia 9-0 on Saturday.
“You watch the seeding here, and I’m going, ‘What is that message? Are they telling us we had to win the dang thing to be a host?'” athletic director Travis Goff said. “So I just pose the question because I don’t know if that’s what I’m supposed to take away from that, because we shouldn’t have had to win the thing to be a host.”
In any case, the four teams will all gather at a newly upgraded Hoglund Ballpark, into which KU will squeeze as many as 4,000 fans, up from the usual 2,500 capacity, thanks to a new grassy area in left field called “The Backyard” and a standing-room-only location that used to be the visiting team’s bullpen. Goff said some of these elements could become permanent and that the experience of hosting a regional will be instructive as to what KU can do with the park going forward. (He did note in no uncertain terms that KU is “locked in” on constructing an indoor practice facility.)
“It’s going to be an awesome experience to be able to play at Hoglund Ballpark in front of a home crowd, give our fans what they’ve been waiting for for many years,” shortstop Tyson LeBlanc said.
As pitcher Dominic Voegele put it, “When you add … hundreds more college kids, the only thing that it can do is just bring more noise.”
Goff said that Casey Cook, associate athletic director for event services, had been waiting his entire tenure with the athletic department to get the chance to maximize Hoglund Ballpark for a regional.
“This will be the best regional in college baseball this season,” Goff said. “It just will, in terms of the energy, the storylines, the way this community’s stepping up into it and the unique things the staff is doing.”
Goff also went a step further and said it will “rival any sporting event that’s happened here in Lawrence at the University of Kansas,” comparing it to recent developments like “College GameDay” and “Big Noon Kickoff” for KU football.
It should certainly be as competitive as the football games that those shows preceded.
Arkansas (39-20, 17-13 SEC) acquitted itself well throughout the year against many of the top teams in its brutal conference, with the regular-season highlight a road sweep of Alabama (the eventual No. 7 national seed). The seventh-seeded Razorbacks then mowed down Tennessee, Texas and Auburn in the league tournament before falling to Georgia in the final. Their key players include first-team all-league starter Hunter Dietz, a redshirt sophomore lefty with a 3.40 ERA and 117 strikeouts on the year; reliever Ethan McElvain, another lefty who has allowed a grand total of four earned runs in 18 appearances this season; and junior shortstop Camden Kozeal, who has 20 home runs and 70 RBIs.
KU went to Arkansas’ regional last year but never got a chance to face the host team, as the Jayhawks went 0-2 with losses to Creighton and North Dakota State.
“I’m excited for it, just because being part of last year’s team left a bad taste in the mouth,” Voegele said.
Missouri State (34-19, 20-10 C-USA) will play Arkansas for the third time this season after splitting a pair of matchups with the Razorbacks earlier in the year. The Bears are an at-large team that finished third in their league in the regular season and then lost in the semifinals of the conference tournament.
Shortstop Logan Fyffe leads Missouri State with a .371 batting average and has nine homers and 43 RBIs on the year. Curry Sutherland has 16 home runs and a team-high 1.070 OPS and also appears sporadically as a pitcher.
Northeastern has a reputation for running, as Fitzgerald referenced. The Huskies lead the nation with 210 stolen bases, which is 29 more than the next closest team and 95 more than anyone in the Big 12. Corner outfielders Harrison Feinberg and Carmelo Musacchia combine for 86 of those stolen bases; Feinberg, a redshirt senior, also has 16 home runs and 63 RBIs, both of which lead the team. Northeastern’s all-league reliever Andrew Wertz, a transfer from Division III Salve Regina, has a 2.84 ERA with six saves.
The Huskies finished second to Campbell in their league during the regular season, but shook off an early loss to Hofstra in the conference tournament and beat the Camels twice to punch their ticket to the Lawrence Regional.
For Fitzgerald, it’s not the first time serving as a host. He was at Dallas Baptist when the Patriots hosted in 2015. But he’s also coached in other regionals on different seed lines.
“I think the reality is whoever plays the cleanest baseball wins the regional,” he said. “And you need some fortune in that you need to stay healthy and in those really tight games, it usually comes down to one big play.”
