Kansas Baseball Escaped NCAA Regionals With Best-Case Scenario

The Kansas baseball program's Cinderella run continued over the weekend when the Jayhawks won the regional they hosted at Hoglund Ballpark to advance to the first Super Regional in program history. Dan Fitzgerald's group took down Arkansas twice in two days, including a victory over Razorback ace Hunter Dietz.

The most likely scenario after KU advanced was a trip to face No. 2 national seed Georgia Tech in the next round. The Yellow Jackets entered the tournament at 48-9 and needed just one more win over Oklahoma to punch their ticket to the Super Regionals.

Instead, the Sooners pulled off one of the most improbable comebacks of the tournament. Trailing by four runs in the seventh, OU scored in each of the final four innings to rally past Georgia Tech in extras and eliminate the Yellow Jackets from their own regional. As a result, Kansas now finds itself in a best-case scenario.

Kansas Escapes NCAA Regionals With Best-Case Scenario

The last and only time the Jayhawks reached the College World Series came in 1993, and the tournament format looked much different then, as the Super Regional round did not yet exist. Georgia Tech's stunning loss could mark a significant moment for a KU program that continues to build itself from the ground up under Fitzgerald, and it presents a far less difficult challenge.

That is not to say Oklahoma will be an easy matchup. The Sooners remain one of the most talented teams left in the field, considering they navigated one of the toughest schedules in the country in the SEC and still finished with a 36-22 record.

Their lineup features several dangerous bats, including Deiten Lachance, who is hitting .333 with 14 home runs and a 1.021 OPS. Dasan Harris owns a .983 OPS, while Trey Gambill has scored 43 runs with a .939 OPS and eight home runs.

KU sluggers like Tyson LeBlanc and Augusto Mungarrieta will need to match the production of Oklahoma's powerful offense in this best-of-three series. Still, even with the test ahead, the Jayhawks could not have asked for a more favorable path to Omaha.

Instead of traveling to face one of the nation's top seeds, Kansas will host every game it plays leading up to the College World Series. For a program that spent decades trying to become relevant on the national stage, the opportunity in front of the Jayhawks is massive.

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