Kent State rounds out the regional group as the #4 seed and will face Louisville in the second game Friday. You might recall that Golden Flashes and Wildcats have some recent history in the CWS, dating back to the 2012 Gary, IN regional. Kentucky and Louisville face each other twice a year of course, but meeting in the regional provides all the same drama as it does when it happens on the hardwood in the NCAA Tournament. Interestingly, this will be the first ever meeting between Kentucky and Kansas in baseball.
I'll have a more complete and in-depth preview later this week, but here is a quick comparison of the four teams in the regional. This is ABSOLUTELY a regional that the Cats can win: there is no one here that is any better than the teams UK faced in the SEC this year and Kentucky swept their two games against the host Cardinals in games started by Dylan Dwyer and Zack Brown.
Seed | School | RPI | Record | Last 10 | R/G | RA/G |
1 | Louisville | 20 | 45-15 | 6-4 | 6.4 | 3.4 |
2 | Kentucky | 19 | 35-23 | 6-4 | 7.8 | 5.1 |
3 | Kansas | 47 | 34-24 | 6-4 | 5.6 | 4.1 |
4 | Kent St | 126 | 35-21 | 4-6 | 6.5 | 4.6 |
Kentucky-Kansas will face off at 2:00 PM Friday. We'll have a game thread for each contest in the regional and all games should be televised on some ESPN station.