College Podcast: Recapping NCAA Tournament Regionals

Image credit: Notre Dame catcher David Lamanna (Photo courtesy of Notre Dame)

On this episode of the Baseball America College Podcast, presented by Rapsodo, Teddy Cahill and Joe Healy recap an exciting weekend of regional action around college baseball.

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Topics discussed at length on this episode are: 

• The exciting final game of the Fayetteville Regional between Arkansas and Nebraska, which ended in a 6-2 Razorbacks win. With a win on Sunday, Nebraska pushed Arkansas to the brink of elimination and then it took a 2-0 lead early in the game on Monday. But a masterpiece of a performance from Kevin Kopps and a couple of well-timed home runs delivered the comeback win for the hosts. 
• Notre Dame dominating the South Bend Regional, including a 26-run outburst Saturday night in a win over Connecticut, to advance to its first super regional since 2002. The Irish will now hit the road to play in Starkville, which is never an easy thing to do, but with what they showed over the weekend, there’s no reason to believe they can’t win there. 
• The Gainesville Regional being a chaos regional where the final came down to the three seed, South Alabama, and the four seed, South Florida. The Bulls won the seventh game on Monday to advance to their first super regional. The big story earlier in the weekend, though, was the 0-2 performance from host Florida. The preseason No. 1 team never truly found its footing in 2021, but still, its elimination coming in a 19-1 loss to South Alabama on Saturday was shocking to watch unfold. 
• Dallas Baptist winning the Fort Worth Regional, beating Oregon State twice and Texas Christian once along the way. Twice DBU made impressive comebacks. It did so against TCU on Saturday night and then again on Monday against Oregon State in a game where it looked as good as done as late as the fifth inning. TCU actually pitched well enough to advance throughout most of the weekend, save for bullpen struggles in the loss to DBU, but didn’t hit enough in an elimination game loss to OSU. It was a disappointing end to a fantastic season for the Horned Frogs. 
• Paul Mainieri’s career getting extended for at least one more weekend after Louisiana State bounced back from an opening game loss to Gonzaga to win its next four games and secure the Eugene Regional title. 
• Coaching changes made over the weekend at two of the most successful programs in college baseball history, Cal State Fullerton and Arizona State.