Consider the many angles of Omaha 2024.
It is a tale of two conferences, with a truly hybrid College World Series — half-SEC, half-ACC.
It is the annual fulfillment of a dream, no matter which direction you look. Nobody wants to go to eastern Nebraska in June more than college baseball teams, whether it be Florida State for the 24th time or Kentucky for the first. Whether it be Tennessee as the nation's No. 1 seed or Florida, with the lowest winning percentage for a College World Series team in 74 years. “The pearly gates of college baseball,” Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle called Omaha.
It is a display case for individuals with the potential of returning home as June legacies — especially this June.
Flash the spotlight on Florida’s Jac Caglianone and his 33 homers, which are second most in the nation. The last time he didn’t reach base at least once in a game was March 9. He has gone hitless in only four out of 62 games. He once went 66 consecutive plate appearances without striking out. And when he wasn’t doing all that, he was pitching.
Or maybe throw the light on Florida State's James Tibbs III, the ACC player of the year and political science major who sent his team to Omaha with a three-homer game in the super regional. Tibbs has 28 home runs this season — and only 31 strikeouts.
Swing it over to North Carolina’s Vance Honeycutt, who homered on the last pitch of Game 1 in the super regional for a walk-off win and the first pitch of Game 2 to send the Tar Heels on their way to the College World Series. He is only the fourth man in ACC history who reached 62 career home runs and did that while being a two-time conference defensive player of the year. “I’ve been saying it since the beginning of the season, he is the best player in the country,” coach Scott Forbes said. “He changes the game.”
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There's Virginia pitcher Jay Woolfolk, who battled control issues and didn’t get a start after March 17 — until coach Brian O'Connor handed him the ball in the regional and super regional. Woolfolk struck out 14 in two starts against Mississippi State and Kansas State. In 2021, he became the first true freshman to start at quarterback for Virginia in 44 years. His father once led the Richmond Spiders to a surprise Sweet 16 in basketball. There’s a blossoming family saga for Omaha.
Same for Kaeden Kent from Texas A&M. That last name might ring a bell. Father Jeff was National League MVP for the San Francisco Giants in 2000 and has more home runs than any major league second baseman in history. Now his son is doing the swinging, such as the grand slam in the Aggies' nine-run inning against Oregon Sunday. Kent has only 86 at-bats for the season as an occasional tendency to chase has affected playing time. It’s been an interesting relationship with Schlossnagle, but Sunday’s magic left everyone smiling.
“He has earned every single bit of what came to him tonight,” Schlossnagle said. “The way he’s handled it this year is defining of our team. That’s why he had that moment because he hasn’t pouted. He’s been pissed and that’s fine. I’m not expecting guys to be happy with not playing."
“When he hits a homer in BP he always makes sure I see it. And I tell him I see every single swing.”
Kent’s swing will become even more important now with the loss of injured Braden Montgomery, the regional most outstanding player.
“I can promise you this: If I had to make every single decision with my heart Kaeden Kent would play every single day at whatever position he wants because you know what kind of competitor he is,” Schlossnagle said. “He’s going to punch you in the face if he gets the chance to do it. He just needs to do it on strikes.”
We could throw the spotlight on the entire gang of Tennessee bashers, who have hit 26 home runs in five tournament games.
Or the Kentucky pitching staff that starved Oregon State on three singles in two games and has allowed only three runs and one extra-base hit in the past 39 innings.
Or the opportunistic North Carolina State lineup that has produced seven walk-off victories this season.
In the end, Omaha 2024 is a dilemma. Which championship would be the best drama, when all eight teams hit town with absorbing stories to tell?
How good would it be if Florida State won, for instance?
The Seminoles have been to the College World Series 23 previous times and returned home disappointed all 23, by far the most for any title-less program. Former coach Mike Martin spent a lifetime in pursuit of the happy ending, making 17 trips before retiring and then passing last February.
This Florida State team yearns to complete the job as a tribute. “For him now, there’s one more thing that I want to do, and we all know what that is,” said coach Link Jarrett. It has been 49 years since the Seminoles were in Omaha with a head coach who wasn’t Mike Martin. Jarrett, in the MCWS two years ago with Notre Dame, understands what has come before him. “This, to me, is a step towards that ultimate quest. I fought for it as a player, I fought for it and didn’t get it done as a coach a couple of years ago, but the mindset of this team and the approach is to go finish that off, and go finish that off for him.”
Then again, wouldn’t a Tennessee championship be memorable?
The last No. 1 seed to win the College World Series was — this is no misprint — Miami in 1999. That dry spell defies explanation. “We kind of can pick up where Evansville left off,” coach Tony Vitello said about the underdog Aces whom his Vols just put down. “We’re not supposed to win because the No. 1 never wins.”
Tennessee has never taken the College World Series and that void sits heavy in a trophy-rich SEC, with past champion Vanderbilt just down the road. The Vols are worth watching just to see how many baseballs leave the zip code. They quickly put the torch to Evansville’s hopes Sunday with seven home runs in the first five innings. Rocky Top meets Babe Ruth. Tennessee has 173 homers for the season and LSU’s all-time record of 188 is getting larger in the front window, but the Vols now go to a place where the outfield is spacious and the pitching will be among the best in the sport. We’ll see if the home run derby continues.
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Or what about Florida? It’s hard to make a case for any SEC baseball team to be a Cinderella but the Gators do have an overcome-the-odds tinge to them.
They slipped into the tournament bracket with a 28-27 record and a big hug from the selection committee. Give them an inch and they’ll take a plane ride to Nebraska. Coach Kevin O'Sullivan’s program certainly knows the way, making it to the CWS nine times now in the past 14 tournaments. Florida survived a flurry of elimination games to get out of the regional and then knocked off Clemson 11-10 in the 13-inning super regional instant classic that went five hours and 453 pitches and was finally won on a two-run double by Michael Robertson, the No. 9 hitter in the lineup.
Yep, there’s the look of a team of destiny. Besides that, the Gators lost the championship finals to LSU last season so they’re attempting to become only the fourth team ever to go from runner-up to title winner from one season to the next.
Or take Kentucky. This ain’t basketball. The Wildcats are new to all this.
They've been anxiously waiting for the glorious day when they could no longer be identified as the only SEC team never to play in the College World Series. That day came Sunday when the winning run in a 3-2 victory over Oregon State was scored because Nolan McCarthy raced from second to third on a wild pitch and kept on rolling home through a coach’s stop sign because he noticed the pitcher wasn’t covering the plate. Problem solved, stigma erased.
“It feels like we’ve really kicked the door down now,” McCarthy said.
Such has been coach Nick Mingione's our-time-is-now mantra. “This is a new day. We have to earn it today. This is how life works. You've got to get up and go to work every day. It doesn't stop. And the way we're going to do it is go on the attack,” he said. “That was just a beautiful way for us to go to Omaha, a guy attacking.”
Mingione was so happy about the clincher that he had his wife and son speaking at the post-game press conference. He played music and mentioned the people who had been praying for his program, a list he said he compiled at 5 o'clock that morning. A coach gets to Omaha for the first time only once. “This has been the best two weeks of my life,” he said.
By the way, only one program in the past 67 years has won the College World Series in its first appearance — Coastal Carolina in 2016.
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Then again, wouldn’t Texas A&M be a charming champion?
The Aggies have soared on the wings of Ivy Leaguers. Designated Hayden Schott was at Columbia last season and catcher Jackson Appel at Penn. They had 12 hits and nine RBI between them in the Super Regional. Schott spent his high school days at Culver Military Academy in Indiana — the same as former Yankees boss George Steinbrenner.
Schlossnagle is one of those Omaha frequent visitors who needs to win one of these things for justice to prevail. This is appearance No. 7 for him, between Texas A&M and TCU.
“We worked all year for this, and our entire lives,” he said. “l never take it for granted, I think Nolan Ryan went to the World Series his rookie year. Never went back. I’ll remind our players of that. You never know when you’re going to get a chance to go back. I’ve never been a part of the championship series or won it. I’d like to do that.”
The North Carolina Tar Heels could win a title and talk of all the late-inning heroics that got them the chance.
They scored six runs in the ninth to beat LIU in the regional, then tied LSU in the ninth and won in the 10th, then walked off West Virginia with Honeycutt’s three-run homer. So far in the NCAA tournament, North Carolina has scored 12 runs in its last at-bat. “With this team, nothing surprises me,” coach Scott Forbes said.
There’s Virginia, and wouldn’t it be nice to see another dogpile for the coach who is an Omaha native son? You know, the guy on the statue?
The Cavaliers have made it to seven College World Series and all seven have come in the past 16 years under Brian O’Connor. As a Creighton player, he was one of the models for the Road to Omaha statue by the front gate, which has phone cameras clicking by the thousands each June. So O’Connor is at the CWS every year, one way or another.
This time he’s bringing a relentless team that scored 15 of its 17 runs in the super regional with two out and is second in the nation with a .336 batting average. Virginia keeps finding ways to get to the CWS. “They are the standard of college baseball," Kansas State coach Pete Hughes said. “They are Omaha-driven and fueled every single year.”
Then there’s North Carolina State, where this sports school year has become legendary. The Wolfpack men’s basketball team was in the Final Four. So were the women. Now North Carolina State baseball is headed to the College World Series. The Wolfpack returned to the scene of the awful disappointment in 2021 when they were on the brink of reaching the championship finals and then a batch of positive COVID-19 tests sent them home. It was hard to live with and a championship might help soothe the old anguish.
“It’s always fun to pull up to the stadium and see their eyes,” Schlossnagle said of players getting to Omaha. Very soon, eight teams in buses will know exactly what he means.
