Four Top Takeaways on Friday’s Big 12 Regional Baseball Games

The field of 64 is set as the road to Omaha started Friday. There were eight Big 12 teams in action on the diamond as the conference went 4-4. Here are my four thoughts on the Big 12 from day one of the college baseball regionals.

Friday Big 12 Regionals Scoreboard

West Virginia: 4, Kentucky: 3

Cincinnati: 11, Wake Forest: 6

Arizona: 3, Cal Poly: 2

Arizona State: 4, UC Irvine: 2

USC: 13, TCU: 1

Duke: 12, Oklahoma State: 5

UTSA: 10, Kansas State: 2

Creighton: 11, Kansas: 4

Walk It Off

There may have not been a better game on Friday than West Virginia vs. Kentucky. With the game tied at three going into the bottom of the ninth, West Virginia third baseman Armani Guzman hit a line drive sac-fly that brought in the winning run for the Mountaineers. Now West Virginia will turn their focus to Clemson on Saturday and a win there could put them in the driver’s seat in the regional.

Cincinnati’s Offense

The pitching may have not been perfect for the Bearcats on Friday but the bats were as hot as ever against Wake Forest. After a Quinton Coats and a Derrick Pitts two-run blast, Cincinnati found themselves up 8-0 after the first two innings.

While the Demon Deacons would cut the lead in half, Donovan Ford’s two-run homer in the fifth broke the game wide open. From there, Cincinnati would hold on to secure an easy 11-6 victory over Wake Forest. Now they will face Tennessee on Saturday.

New Schools, Big Wins

There wasn’t a ton of great news from the Big 12 on Friday, but it was nice to see both Arizona schools get the job done. The Wildcats beat Cal Poly in the Eugene Regional with a close 3-2 win thanks to Owen Kramkowski’s absolute gem of a game on the mound.

Meanwhile, for Arizona State, it wasn’t the offense that stole the show. Coming into the weekend, the Sun Devils had one of the best lineups in the Big 12 yet I came away more impressed with their pitching than their hitting on Friday.

Ben Jacobs did a great job on the mound against a solid UC Irvine team before Giblin and Carlon came in to finish the job.

Bad Blowouts

While I would love to sit here and talk about how great the Big 12 was on Friday, it wasn’t exactly a picture-perfect day for the conference. Four of the eight teams who made it to the postseason were absolutely blown out on Friday.

Kansas State didn’t stand a chance against UTSA in Austin while Oklahoma State wasn’t even competitive against Duke in Athens.

To make matters worse, TCU (who was my Big 12 favorite to make it to Omaha) got absolutely annihilated by a USC team who barely made it to the postseason. Plus, Kansas played one of their worst games in recent memory against Creighton in their 8-4 loss in Fayetteville.

While I didn’t expect Kansas State or Oklahoma State to make it out of their regionals, I did expect them to at the very least be competitive. However, I expected a whole lot more out of Kansas and TCU on Friday. Now, all four of these teams will be facing elimination on Saturday.