2025 NCAA baseball Super Regionals set: What are the most intriguing matchups?

New York Times

2 days ago

By Mitch Light, Joe Rexrode, Lindsay Schnell and Mitch Sherman
The 2025 NCAA baseball Super Regional field is set following six winner-take-all games on Monday.
Top seed Vanderbilt and No. 2 seed Texas were both eliminated on Sunday, but five of the six other top-eight national seeds advanced and will serve as hosts next weekend.
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The story on Monday night was Murray State, which became the 10th No. 4 seed to advance to the Super Regionals since the current format was instituted in 1999. The Racers, the champions of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, held on for a 12-11 win over Ole Miss in Game 7 of the Oxford Regional on Monday night. Ole Miss trimmed a 12-3 deficit to 12-11 with five runs in the seventh and three in the eighth but went down quietly in the ninth.
Little Rock, one of two teams in the field with a losing record, almost became a second No. 4 seed to advance, but the Trojans lost to LSU in the Baton Rouge Regional championship game.
Here are the matchups in the Super Regionals:
No conference has more teams in Super Regionals than the ACC 😤 pic.twitter.com/6NHmcdAKiT
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) June 3, 2025
Is this the year Duke finally gets over the hump? The program has reached the Super Regional three previous times under coach Chris Pollard but had to play each time on the road, losing at Texas Tech in 2018, Vanderbilt in 2019 and Virginia in 2023. Duke took the first game in each of those Supers but ultimately fell short. Now, the Blue Devils finally get to play at home, thanks to Murray State's magical run through the Oxford Regional.
And how about those Racers! Murray State won the Regional in dramatic fashion, beating Ole Miss twice at Swayze Field to advance to the Supers for the first time in program history. The Racers got it done offensively, scoring a total of 42 runs in their four games in Oxford — three vs. Ole Miss and one vs. Georgia Tech.
They will be facing a Duke pitching staff that gave up 10 total runs in three games at the Athens Regional, including only three to a powerful Georgia offense that leads the nation in home runs. — Light
THAT moment… #GoRacers🏇 pic.twitter.com/38IlzMkM8A
— Murray State Baseball (@RacersBaseball) June 3, 2025
This is a showcase of two of the SEC's — and by definition, the nation's — most talented teams. They might be the top two. Tennessee has prospects such as pitchers Liam Doyle and Marcus Phillips, and infielders Andrew Fischer and Gavin Kilen. Arkansas counters with star shortstop Wehiwa Aloy, outfielder Charles Davalan and pitchers Gage Wood and Zach Root. It's a talent bonanza.
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It's also a continuation of the SEC's disappointment after an underwhelming performance in the Regionals. That one of these teams definitely won't get to Omaha is a downer for the league, especially considering some of the national seeds that didn't make it to the Supers.
Tony Vitello returns to his former home to take on mentor Dave Van Horn in one of the sport's great environments. Arkansas took two out of three at home against Tennessee to end the regular season and had no issues cruising through the first weekend, but the Vols seem to have their edge back. — Rexrode
The eight-nine matchup is always intriguing, but this one is especially so because after a wild Regional round, we don't have that many Supers featuring two top-16 seeds. And neither team had an easy path to get here.
After Oregon State's opening home loss, the Beavers' chances were shaky, but OSU responded by scoring 43 (43!) runs in its final three Regional games. FSU needed some magic of its own to pull off a late-game comeback against Mississippi State and advance to its 19th (19th!) Super Regional, the most of any program in the country.
Florida State has one of the top prospects in the country in junior left-hander Jamie Arnold. The Beavers boast one of the best freshmen in the nation in right-hander Dax Whitney. Though they aren't likely to start the same game — Arnold should be the Game 1 guy while Whitney is likely for Game 2 — we are probably in for a masterclass in pitching. — Schnell
This battle of the four-letter state schools is a historical mismatch. The Roadrunners are in the NCAA postseason for the first time since 2013 — which happens to be the year that the Bruins last qualified for the College World Series. UCLA won it all 12 years ago. Coach John Savage, in his 21st season, aims to take a fourth UCLA team to Omaha. But UTSA will not be intimidated by the iconic jersey or the setting after it rolled Texas twice en route to sweeping the Austin Regional. It was one of several black eyes for the SEC in the opening weekend of the tournament. When it's over in Westwood, we'll see a representative from the American Athletic Conference or the Big Ten at the CWS. — Sherman
(Photo of Murray State: Petre Thomas / Imagn Images)