Upsets, Walk-Offs Highlight Friday’s Thrilling Action In NCAA Tournament Regionals

Image credit: Dakota Jordan (Photo by Eddie Kelly / ProLook Photos)

Friday provided a thrilling start to the NCAA Tournament. A record six games were decided on walk-offs. Seventeen were decided by three runs or less. Three required extra innings. For more than 12 hours, college baseball fans had a chance to gorge on the best of the sport.

Here are some takeaways from all the action.

1. Evansville provided the most surprising upset of the day, taking down East Carolina, the No. 16 overall seed, to open the day in Greenville. The Purple Aces beat the Pirates, 4-1, to extend their winning streak to seven games after last week sweeping through the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

Freshman lefthander Kenton Deverman and righthander Shane Harris on Friday combined to shut down the Pirates’ lineup. Deverman held ECU to one run on three hits in eight innings. He struck out four batters and walked none. He turned the ball over to Harris for the ninth and the righthander fended off a comeback bid to close out the game.

Deverman improved to 9-1, 3.81 with 81 strikeouts and 20 walks in 106.1 innings this season.

2. Evansville’s upset was just the start of things in Greenville. In the nightcap, VCU upset Wake Forest, 1-0. That win sends the Rams into the winner’s bracket for the second time in three years.

Lefthander Christian Gordon and righthander Brian Curley combined to silence the Demon Deacons’ lineup, holding them to three hits. Gordon struck out 13 batters in 7.2 scoreless innings and scattered two hits and a walk. Curley worked around a hit and a walk to get the final four outs and finish off Wake.

The Demon Deacons’ pitching staff was nearly as good, as David Falco Jr. struck out 10 batters in 4.2 innings and held the Rams to one run on two hits. The lone run came in the fifth when Eli Weisner led off the inning with a single, stole second, advanced to third on another hit and then scored on a sacrifice fly from Cooper Benzin. Four Wake relievers combined for 4.1 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit, but the Deacs could never get their bats going.

3. Greenville now has the unlikely winner’s bracket showdown of Evansville and VCU. Either the Purple Aces or Rams will be in the driver’s seat of the regional. Evansville has never won a regional; VCU has won just one (2015 Dallas).

Meanwhile, ECU and Wake will face off in the loser’s bracket. The game is expected to feature a showdown between Trey Yesavage and Chase Burns, two projected first-round righthanders. It’s a game that many had circled as a potential highlight of Saturday night’s action. Instead, it takes on even greater meaning as an elimination game. Either ECU will be the first host eliminated from the tournament or Wake, the Preseason No. 1 team, will have its season ended. High drama at high noon in Greenville.

4. Grand Canyon defeated Arizona, 9-4, giving the tournament a second instance of a host being upset by a No. 4 seed. While the Antelopes deserve plenty of credit for going into Hi Corbett Field and winning on Friday, they were a trendy pick of being the No. 4 seed most likely to spring an upset. GCU had already beaten Arizona twice this season, including a 24-8 drubbing in April.

GCU simply went about its business on Friday. Righthander Grant Richardson (6 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 5 K) was solid, while Isaac Lyon (3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K) was strong out of the bullpen. The lineup collected eight hits and seven walks, led by Tyler Wilson (2-for-4, HR) and Eddy Pelc (2-for-3, 2B, 4 RBI).

The Antelopes didn’t get any heroic performances, they were just the better team Friday night. Now, Grand Canyon will face West Virginia in the winner’s bracket game.

5. It’s not right to use postseason results as evidence of whether the selection committee got something right or wrong. The committee can only make decisions based on the results of the games that have been played, after all.

That said, it’s notable that the only two hosts that lost Friday were the two that were most surprising. Arizona ranked No. 31 in RPI on Selection Monday, well outside the range typical for hosts, but was awarded a regional because it won the Pac-12 regular season and tournament titles. ECU ranked No. 22, not terribly out of range, but lower than Indiana State (10), Duke (16) and Dallas Baptist (17).

Mostly, that’s just a tough coincidence. The No. 4 seeds overall played well Friday and a couple of other games could have easily swung a different direction. But it’s also easy to look at a couple of the committee’s boldest calls and wonder about them in light of Friday’s results.

6. Beyond the upsets, Friday’s pure drama was incredible. The walk-offs obviously were the height of the action, but very few games failed to produce at least some tense moments.

Was that random or does it speak to the parity of the sport this year? Probably a little of both. The gap between the best teams and the rest of the field feels tighter this year, but I’ll need more than one day of tournament action before I fully buy into a theory about this year being more prone to upsets and parity than normal.

7. The freshmen in Chapel Hill were more than all right. Both games in the regional were decided on walk-off home runs from freshmen.

In the first game, Steven Milam homered twice in the final three innings to help LSU to a 4-3 victory against Wofford. In the nightcap, Gavin Gallaher hit a walk-off grand slam to send North Carolina to an 11-8 victory against Long Island.

Milam and Gallaher both picked up their older, very famous teammates. Tommy White and Vance Honeycutt, both All-Americans who are projected to be drafted in the first round in July, combined to go 0-for-8 in the two games. But Milam and Gallaher came through with big swings when the Tigers and Tar Heels needed it the most.

Their heroics set up a thrilling winner’s bracket showdown Saturday night. LSU (41-21) has won eight of its last nine games, while UNC (43-13) is 33-2 this season at Boshamer Stadium. Something’s going to have to give.

8. One of the best games of the day was the nightcap in Charlottesville between Mississippi State and St. John’s. The Bulldogs ultimately walked off with a thrilling, 5-2, win in 10 innings.

The teams were deadlocked at 2 for most of the night, as Khal Stephen (8 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 10 K) and Xavier Kolhosser (8.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K) locked in a classic pitcher’s duel. Mississippi State nearly walked the game off in the ninth on a deep drive off the bat of Amani Larry, but left fielder Garrett Scavelli made a game-saving catch at the wall.

The very next inning, however, the Bulldogs were back in business. Aaron Downs led off the inning with a single, moved to second on a sacrifice and to third on a ground out. That brought two-hole hitter David Mershon to the plate with two outs and two bases open. St. John’s coach Mike Hampton elected to intentionally walk Mershon to bring Dakota Jordan to the plate. Jordan is Mississippi State’s best prospect and a potential first round pick, but he also was just 1-for-26 and 0-for-4 on the night.

After the game, Jordan said he took the decision personally. And he ripped an opposite-field, three-run home run to walk-off the Red Storm.

Mississippi State advances in the winner’s bracket to take on host Virginia.

9. UC Irvine walked off Nicholls State, 13-12, in one of the wildest games of the day.

The Anteaters jumped out to a 9-1 lead after four innings, but the Colonels battled back and took a 12-11 lead in the ninth inning on a three-run home run by Edgar Alvarez, the Southland Conference player of the year. Nicholls has never won an NCAA Tournament game, but now was on the verge of a milestone. It had not only overcome an eight-run deficit, it also had seen ace Jacob Mayers forced out of the game in the second inning due to injury.

But it wasn’t to be. UCI rallied with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. With a runner on second base, Woody Hadeen worked a walk and Myles Smith reached on an error to load the bases for Caden Kendle. The senior shot a single into right field, scoring two runs for a walk-off win.

That Kendle would play hero in the game was extra special. He was the 2023 co-Big West player of the year and was drafted in the 10th round by the Cardinals. He nearly signed with St. Louis before having a change of heart and deciding to return, citing unfinished business with the Anteaters. A game like Friday’s was likely the kind of moment he was hoping for when he decided not to turn pro.

10. Here’s how every multi-bid conference fared Friday:

Big 12: 5-0
Big West: 2-0
SEC: 9-2
Big Ten: 2-1
Pac-12: 2-1
ACC: 5-3
Big East: 1-1
Missouri Valley: 1-1
Sun Belt: 1-3
Conference USA: 0-1
American: 0-2

Those results account for 31 of 32 scheduled games. The nightcap in Fayetteville between Louisiana Tech and Kansas State was suspended in the sixth inning with the Wildcats leading, 9-4.