The Confidential

ACC Leads the Way to Omaha and the CWS

The regionals are complete and now its on to the super regionals. This is the last stop before Omaha and the College World Series.  So far there hasn’t been any real surprises this year, aka Kent State last year.  There has been only two upsets with the biggest being Oregon, who was the #8 national seed, being knocked out by Rice. The other is Virginia Tech being knocked out by Oklahoma. Top national seed North Carolina was taken to extra innings by Fla Atlantic in an elimination game but other than that it has been chalk.

The ACC will have their four remaining teams play host in the super regionals while Louisville, a future ACC member, has also earned a spot. The SEC also has four teams remaining but only two of them will be hosting. The Big 12 and the Pac 12 each has two teams remaining. The next round of games will be a beast of three series which will run from Friday, June 7 until Monday, June 10.

Here is a run down on the super regionals.

The top nationally seeded North Carolina will host South Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC in the first game of the super regionals, Friday at 1pm. They will follow up with their second game on Saturday at 12pm and finish off at 1pm Sunday, if necessary. This has the makings of a great series with teams from the nations top two conferences, the ACC and the SEC, squaring off but North Carolina should prove to be the superior team.

NC State will host Rice in Raleigh, NC starting Friday at 4pm with following games at the same time on Saturday and Sunday, if necessary. Rice is hot after knocking out the 8th nationally seeded Oregon team.

LSU is the #4 national seed and will host Oklahoma, who eliminated Virginia Tech in the regionals. Their games will begin Friday at 7pm in Baton Rouge, La. and will follow at 7pm on Saturday and Sunday, if necessary.

In a west coast showdown, UCLA will faceoff against the 5th nationally seeded CS Fullerton in Fullerton, Cal. Their first pitch will be on Friday at 7pm,  follow up Saturday at 10pm and finish off at 10pm Sunday, if necessary.

Louisville will have their hands full with 2nd nationally seeded Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn. Louisville responded to a regular season May loss to Vanderbilt by cleaning up their game and putting together a 16 game winning streak to finish the season. Louisville went cold in the conference tournament, losing two straight, but swept their regional. They beat Bowling Green 8-3, Miami (Fl) 6-4 and Oklahoma St 12-3. The Cardinals seem to be playing their best ball of the season right now and could give Vandy a run for their money. They will meet Saturday at pm, Sunday at 4pm and Monday at 7pm, if necessary.

Florida State, the 7th national seed, will host the B1G champion Indiana Hoosiers in Tallahassee, Fl. This could be a surprisingly entertaining series and will probably go the full three games with the Seminoles pulling it off in the end. They will start on Saturday at 12pm, Sunday at 1pm and if necessary will play at 1pm on Monday.

In another showdown between the ACC and the SEC, the 6th nationally seeded Virginia will host Mississippi State in Charlottesville, Va starting Saturday at 1pm. Their following games will be on Sunday at 7pm and Monday at 4pm, if necessary. At this time of year they all are good teams and every game is a toss up.

In the final super regional Kansas St will probably be overmatched by the 3rd nationally seeded Oregon St in Corvallis, Or. They will play Saturday at 7pm, Sunday at 10pm and Monday at 7pm, if necessary.

The ACC will have several opportunities to knock out SEC teams before Omaha and could dominate the super regionals and take an overwhelming advantage into Omaha by placing 5 of the 8 teams there, including Louisville. If that were to happen then LSU would be the SEC last hope.  This is unlikely but certainly not impossible. With the exception of Louisville, the ACC should be favored in all of their match ups. With the regionals basically going chalk, would it be surprising if there were upsets in the super regionals though?