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No. 1 Wake Forest dominant, joins Oral Roberts and 4 others moving on in NCAA Tournament

2023-06-05 13:21
No. 1 national seed Wake Forest completed one of the most dominant runs through an NCAA Tournament regional and joined six other teams advancing to super regionals
No. 1 Wake Forest dominant, joins Oral Roberts and 4 others moving on in NCAA Tournament

No. 1 national seed Wake Forest completed one of the most dominant runs through an NCAA Tournament regional Sunday and joined six others advancing to super regionals, including Oral Roberts of the Summit League.

The Demon Deacons beat George Mason 15-1 in the final in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and outscored their three opponents by a combined 48-7.

Oral Roberts extended its win streak to 21 games and became the eighth No. 4 regional seed since 2006 to make a super regional when it held off Dallas Baptist 6-5 in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

No. 7 Virginia, No. 14 Indiana State, No. 15 South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas also wrapped up regionals.

Virginia defeated East Carolina 8-3 in Charlottesville to make a super regional for the second time in three years. Indiana State, hosting a regional for the first time, won 11-8 over Iowa to make its first super regional. South Carolina, which entered the tournament with losses in 11 of 14 games, beat Campbell 16-7 and is back in supers for the first time since 2018.

Tennessee and Texas are in supers for the third straight year. The Volunteers beat Charlotte 9-2 to finish a sweep through the Clemson Regional, and the Longhorns won 10-6 at No. 9 national seed Miami for the second victory in two days over the Hurricanes.

Wake Forest (50-10) will host Alabama or Boston College starting Friday or Saturday and advance to the College World Series for the first time since winning the 1955 national title if it wins the best-of-three super regional.

Oral Roberts (49-11) will visit Oregon or Xavier; Virginia (48-12) hosts No. 10 Coastal Carolina or Duke; Indiana State (45-15) plays at Arkansas or hosts TCU or Santa Clara; South Carolina (41-19) visits No. 2 Florida or hosts Texas Tech; Tennessee (41-19) hosts Penn or visits Southern Mississippi; and Texas (41-20) visits Stanford or meets Texas A&M at a site to be determined.

No. 4 Clemson became the highest national seed eliminated, continuing a decade of postseason frustration for the Tigers, and No. 6 Vanderbilt was knocked out of regionals a second straight year.

Charlotte ended Clemson's season with a 3-2 win, making it 10 straight appearances since 2010 that the Tigers have failed to make it out of the regional round. This was the fourth time in five appearances they were knocked out on their home field.

No. 2 Florida stayed alive with an 8-2 win over Connecticut and a 7-1 win over Texas Tech, forcing a winner-take-all game with the Red Raiders in Gainesville.

No. 3 Arkansas bounced back from a 20-5 loss to TCU to eliminate Santa Clara 6-4 and would have to beat the Horned Frogs twice on Monday to advance.

THAT'S CRAY, TRE

No one would have mistaken TCU's 165-pound second baseman Tre Richardson for a power hitter before Sunday. He sure was one against Arkansas, hitting two grand slams and another homer and tying the tournament record with 11 RBIs in the Horned Frogs' 15-run victory.

Richardson entered the game with two home runs in his first 60 games for TCU after going deep seven times in 115 games over three seasons at Baylor.

Richardson's first and second homers since April 16 were grand slams in the first and second innings, and he hit a solo shot in the sixth and finished the game 5 for 6.

Arkansas, which had won 31 of 35 home games, sustained its most lopsided home loss in two years.

BIG BATS

Wake Forest's Pierce Bennett homered and drove in five runs and Danny Corona connected twice against George Mason. ... Keegan Watson's three-run homer in the seventh put Indiana State in control against Iowa. ... Jalin Flores' grand slam highlighted Texas' nine-run third inning against Miami. ... Jac Caglianone homered twice against UConn and became the first Southeastern Conference player since LSU’s Brad Cresse in 2000 to hit 30 in a season. ... Connor Dykstra drove in five runs and Brett Stallings' sacrifice fly in the ninth sent George Mason to its first regional final in eight appearances with an 11-10 walk-off win over Maryland.

MOUND MARVELS

Tennessee's Drew Beam held Charlotte to two runs on four hits and struck out 10. ... Florida's Cade Fisher and Brandon Neely combined to strike out eight and hold Texas Tech to one run on six singles and a double. ... Jack Billings retired 18 straight to start the game and took a perfect game into the seventh inning in Coastal Carolina's 13-5 win over Rider. Billings threw a career-high 7 1/3 innings and allowed five runs on five hits and a walk. ... Austin Strickland pitched the first six innings and Magdiel Cotto and James McCoy finished a seven-hit shutout in Kentucky's 10-0 win over West Virginia.

AROUND THE HORN

Penn, leading 2-1, took a gut punch against Southern Miss when the fourth inning ended with the bases loaded when plate umpire Mike Morris called Calvin Brown out on full count for not being alert and ready when the pitch clock hit 10 seconds. ... West Virginia's JJ Wetherholt had three hits against Kentucky and finished the season with a .454 batting average, making him the first Power Five player over .450 since Florida State's Buster Posey (.463) in 2009. ... East Carolina has 33 tournament appearances without making a CWS, the longest streak of its kind. ... TCU has outscored its two opponents 32-9 and had at least 12 runs in five of six games since the Big 12 Tournament. The Horned Frogs are batting .447 (38 of 85) in the tournament with six homers.

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