Life in the Valley

Murray State Opens First Super Regional This Afternoon at Duke

Two wins.

Seems simple enough, especially for a team that’s won 42 times this season and emerged victorious in 75% of the games its played.

Bur the 2 toughest wins in college baseball are the 2 that separate teams from bowing out in this round and advancing to Omaha for the first time.

Dallas Baptist, then still a member of the Missouri Valley Conference, got close in 2021. But Kyle Teel’s 7th-inning grand slam for Virginia in Game 3 put an end that run.

Indiana State hosted and won its regional in 2023, and should have hosted a Super Regional en route to trying to return to Omaha for the first time since 1986. But a scheduling conflict sent the Sycamores to Fort Worth, where their road to Omaha ended in 2 games.

Last year, Evansville tried to navigate the road to Omaha for the first time, winning the Greenville Regional and upsetting #1 national seed Tennessee in Game 2 of Supers in Knoxville before the Vols decisively won Game 3.

And so here is Murray State, the latest MVC team trying to break through for what would be the conference’s first College World Series bid since Missouri State made it in 2003. Dallas Baptist is long gone now, and Missouri State is officially a goner come July 1, headed to Conference USA.

So the landscape of the Valley is much different than it once was. On one hand, that means the departure of solid programs like MSU, DBU, Wichita State, and Creighton. On the other, it presents opportunities for new teams to step into the limelight, and the Racers are in that spot now.

For a conference that doesn’t get a ton of respect during the season, the Valley seems to have this regional thing down. MVC teams are 11-4 the last 3 seasons in regionals, beating the likes of Mississippi, Georgia Tech, Iowa, Illinois, and East Carolina.

But if Murray is going to kick the door in and reach the promised land, a few things have to happen.

First, the Racers’ bats are going to have to travel again. Despite solid competition, there wasn’t much slowing down the Murray State offense at the Oxford Regional, as the Racers scored 42 runs in 4 games. In 8 total postseason games, including the MVC Tournament, Murray State has gone 7-1 and hit .340, averaging more than 10 runs per game. They’ve smoked 28 doubles and lashed 44 extra-base hits (5.5 per game). Dustin Mercer has 9 doubles in the postseason alone and is hitting .528 in 8 games. Six Racer regulars are batting at least .333 since the regular season ended. Mercer, Luke Mistone, and Jonathan Hogart all have 13 RBIs each.

As I talked about here, however, Duke is pretty powerful hitting team, too. So another key for the Racers will be what they get from their starting pitchers. Nic Schutte and Issac Silva both threw a lot of pitches in Oxford, with Schutte going 119 in his Friday start, then Silva starting Saturday and throwing 4+ innings before he came back to start Monday’s regional finale, with Schutte coming on in relief. Both have had 4 days rest, which isn’t optimal for a front-line college starting pitcher, so how long they can go effectively and keep head coach Dan Skirka from turning to his bullpen is going to be critical in this series. While the postseason ERAs for both Schutte (8.40) and Silva (9.72) are high, the more important factor in Oxford was the quantity of their work – especially given the run support they received.

Graham Kelham has been a popular choice out of the bullpen this postseason, throwing 10 1/3 innings and pitching to a 2.61 ERA. He’s allowed just 1 home run, walked only 2, and struck out 19. He slammed the door in the regional final. Not appearing in that game was Dylan Zentko, a mainstay for most of the season who has worked just 3 games in the postseason (2-0, 5.68). Hopefully he’s available for this series. Jacob Hustedde is 1-0, 4.05 in 4 appearances this postseason, working 6 2/3 innings.

Those 5 figure to get most of the work, though Kane Elmy could get a start if this series goes 3 games. I would expect Murray State to go with its 2 big guns in the opening 2 games, though if the Racers lead 1 game to 0 going into Sunday, maybe Elmy gets the call and whomever out of Silva and Schutte doesn’t start today works a possible Game 3. Though it seems like teams are getting in trouble this postseason messing around with their regular weekend rotations.

The atmosphere in Durham won’t be quite what the Racers saw in Oxford, but Murray State will still have to try and feed off that, stay loose, and just play their own brand of baseball.

It’s been good enough to get them here, and it’s good enough to get the 2 hardest wins in college baseball.

Ed Morgans is the founder of MVCBaseball.com. An Evansville graduate, Ed has written about and broadcast college baseball, while following the sport for 40 years.