OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The stands at Charles Schwab Field were emptying, and Murray State players wanted to savor their program's first College World Series as long as they could.
Never mind the Racers had just been no-hit by Arkansas' Gage Wood in a 3-0 loss that will send them home to southwestern Kentucky on Tuesday.
Some of the players filled jars with infield dirt, a keepsake from their improbable journey to the city where every college baseball team wants to be in June. Some milled about with family and friends.
“One of my wife’s favorite movies is “A League of Their Own,” and they said there’s no crying in baseball,” an emotional coach Dan Skirka said to open his postgame news conference with 9-year-old son Keegan on his knee. “Well, throw that out the window. There’s no way I’m making it through this right here.”
The Racers were the first Missouri Valley Conference team to make the CWS since 2003 and only the fourth No. 4 regional seed to get to Omaha since the NCAA Tournament went to its current format in 1999.
They swept conference regular-season and tournament championships, beat No. 10 national seed Mississippi of the SEC twice on its home field and Georgia Tech of the ACC once en route to a regional title. Then the Racers went to Duke of the ACC for super regionals and lost the opener before winning two straight to punch their ticket to Omaha.
Murray State overcame early jitters in its CWS opener against UCLA, falling behind 6-0, and lost 6-4.
As for their game against Arkansas, the Racers just happened to run into a pitcher who threw one of the greatest games in college baseball history — a no-hitter with 19 strikeouts, a record in a nine-inning CWS game and tied for most by a Division I pitcher this season.
“We never lost faith. Haven’t all year. We're not about to start now," third baseman Carson Garner said. “About halfway through the game, I think we realized that, ‘Hey, this guy’s, he’s dealing, he’s throwing a perfect game.’ ”
Murray State finished 44-17 to set a program record for wins, ending the season with only its second shutout loss.
“The wins are phenomenal. We had a lot of them,” said Jonathan Hogart, who led the Racers with 22 homers. “You just can’t match the culture we have here. I’m going to miss Coach, I’m going to miss these two (Garner and Dustin Mercer). I’m going to miss every one of these guys. Strap on the cleats to go to war with these guys was such a blessing this year, and I’ll never take it for granted.”
Skirka, who finished his seventh season at the Racers' coach, put together a roster made up of eight Division I transfers, 14 from junior colleges and 14 high school recruits. Skirka said no one on his team was making money from endorsements or other name, image and likeness opportunities.
“You say at the end of the year only one team’s happy,” Skirka said. “That ain’t the case this year. There’s definitely more than one because these guys, the run they went on, you’re not going to be able to wipe the smile off their face for a really long time. That’s what I told them. They’re going to share this for ages and people are going to ask them about it for ages, and that’s really the cool thing.”
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