As West Virginia advances to its first Super Regional appearance in program history, few rivals remain.
Despite six Big 12 teams entering the NCAA Tournament for the regional round last week, only two are still in the race for a Men’s College World Series appearance. One of those two is WVU, with the other being Kansas State.
With this being the case, it is unclear which games Mountaineer fans truly have a stake in, if any at all, despite their own matchup against North Carolina. Nevertheless, a couple of games will be worth watching for long-time supporters.
Texas A&M, who took out WVU in its last regional appearance, is around at the Super Regional this year. The Aggies take on Oregon as the three-seeded hosts of the Bryan-College Station Super Regional, beginning at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 8 on ESPN2.
The most obvious of the games to keep an eye on, though, is the Charlottesville Super Regional has two reasons to watch for WVU fans. The first is that Kansas State is WVU’s only in-conference rival remaining, and the other has to do with potential future matchups.
Kansas State entered the Fayetteville Regional similar to how WVU did in Tucson. As the three seed, the Wildcats shocked the NCAA by going 3-0 in games against each other team in the region. They started the round with a bang, defeating Louisiana Tech 19-4 before taking down Arkansas 7-6 and Southeast Missouri 7-2 to advance to the Super Regionals.
Now, alongside West Virginia, the Wildcats are one of two Big 12 teams still in contention for the College World Series. If they want to advance past the top eight though, they will have to go through West Virginia.
Because the teams share the bottom left corner of the bracket, if both WVU and Kansas State advance, the first round of the Men’s College World Series will include a battle of two Big 12 teams.
In the regular season, the Mountaineers took care of Kansas State with relative ease. After falling 4-3 to the Wildcats on May 10, WVU recovered with a 13-run shutout followed by another 12-5 victory to win the season series.
When the Big 12 Conference Championship came along, though, it was the Wildcats who evened the series by knocking out WVU with an 8-4 win. As such, a matchup in the top eight would settle the series once and for all and determine the superior Big 12 program in 2024.
Alternatively, the Mountaineers could play Virginia if they were to advance, and, as the Super Regional hosts and No. 12 overall seed, that may be the more likely option. Regardless, the series will be one to keep an eye on as WVU fans.
The Charlottesville Super Regional begins on June 7 at 7 p.m. ET on ESPNU. The second game will take place at 3 p.m. the following day, with the potential third game scheduled for 3 p.m. as well on Sunday.
Photo by Aaron Parker, Blue Gold Sports
