The hottest team in college baseball right now doesn’t play in the SEC or Pac-12, and it’s not one of Oklahoma’s large Big 12 schools.
Nope, it’s Oral Roberts, the small school with the big heart and just over 5,000 students from Tulsa. The Eagles are 39-3 in their last 42 games and have won 21 in a row, including three straight at the Stillwater Regional this past weekend. That ended Oklahoma State’s quest to host this weekend’s Super Regional.
Oral Roberts (49-11) will head to Eugene, Ore., this week and face Oregon (40-20) in a Super Regional at 7 p.m. Friday in PK Park on ESPNU. Game 2 is scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday and then if Game 3 is necessary, it will be Sunday at a time to be determined.
There is no legal Oklahoma sports betting for the NCAA college baseball tournament, or any other sport. Fans would need to drive to Arkansas or Kansas to place bets on games in college baseball’s eight Super Regionals.
ORU Chases History as No. 4 Seed
The Eagles are just the eighth No. 4 regional seed since 1999’s expansion to 64 teams to reach the Super Regional round and just the 14th lowest regional seed to play for a berth in the College World Series since 1987.
From 1987 to 1998, the field was 48 teams split among eight, six-team brackets. In that time, only six No. 6 seeds advanced to the regional final as one of the final 16 teams left playing and none made the College World Series.
The Eagles will enter this weekend with dreams of following the longshot Fresno State cashed in back in 2008. It started the postseason needing to win the Western Athletic tournament to make the NCAA tournament and did. Then, as a No. 4 regional seed, the Bulldogs roared to Omaha and became the first 30-loss team to win the national title.
NCAA Championship Odds
ORU doesn’t have the losses, but they have the long odds of making it to the CWS and even longer odds of rising from a No. 4 regional seed to winning the national title.
Although there are no Oklahoma betting apps, national operators see the Golden Eagles as the longest shot on the board to make the CWS.
Keeping the Dream Alive
The Eagles stormed through Stillwater by opening with a 6-4 victory over Oklahoma State.
And that wasn’t a fluke. Part of the winning streak includes one of their two midweek victories over OSU this season. ORU won both midweek meetings, 8-5 on April 11 at O’Brate Stadium and 9-7 on May 2 in Tulsa.
The Eagles, who haven’t lost since a 4-2 defeat to North Dakota State on April 22, swept the Stillwater Regional with a 15-12 victory over Washington and then sealed it with a 6-5 over Dallas Baptist.
Oregon was the No. 2 seed in the Nashville Regional, but it shocked No. 6 national seed Vanderbilt by coming out on top. The Ducks, who have the ninth-best odds of winning the title at +1400, opened with a 5-4 win over Xavier before beating the Commodores 8-7. After Xavier eliminated Vanderbilt, Oregon handled the Musketeers with ease in a 11-2 championship game victory.
Experience Leads Eagles to Oregon
Junior closer Cade Denton was named the Stillwater Regional Most Outstanding Player after he earned the save in all three victories. That gives him a school-record tying 15 saves on the season. He has an ERA of 1.65 in 31 appearances and that comes on the heels of a 0.41 ERA as a sophomore in 24 games.
Dalton Patten got the championship-game victory, improving to 4-1 after pitching 2.1 innings in relief of starter Brooks Fowler.
Offensively, Matt Hogan provided the heroics in the final victory over Dallas Baptist with a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth inning to give the Eagles a 6-4 lead. The outfielder played three years at Vanderbilt and one at South Carolina before transferring to ORU for his final season, and it’s been a great one. He’s batting .338 with 17 homers and 65 RBIs.
Junior outfielder Jonah Cox enters the matchup with Oregon with a 44-game hitting streak. Cox, who transferred from Eastern Oklahoma State College, was 6 for 11 in Stillwater, and he’s made just two errors in 142 chances this season. He has a hit in 59 of 60 games this season.
He’s still 14 games away from the single-season and Division I mark of 58 straight games with a hit set by Oklahoma State’s Robin Ventura in 1988.
This will be Oral Roberts’ second trip to a Super Regional and first since 2006, when the Eagles lost twice at Clemson. ORU also lost to Stanford in 1987 in the West I Regional final.
One thing is for sure this time around: ORU heads to Oregon with confidence it can win two more and advance to Omaha, Neb., for its first trip to the College World Series since 1978.
