Crimson Tide gives SEC 5 in CWS field

Jun. 9—Alabama helped give the Southeastern Conference a record five-team party headed to the College World Series, while also capping off the Heart of Dixie’s two-team contingent.

The Crimson Tide on Monday finished Sunday’s weather-suspended game and beat St. John’s 7-2 to sweep an NCAA super regional series.

With Oklahoma also finishing a super regional sweep of Kansas on Monday, the SEC will have five of the eight teams in Omaha. One whole side of the bracket will be all-SEC, ensuring the league has someone playing for the national championship for a ninth straight CWS.

“What a day, what a year, what a season, man, 27 years in the making,” Alabama coach Rob Vaughn said Monday. “I couldn’t think of a better group to be able to kick that door down. I don’t even have words. I don’t have words.”

Alabama (42-19) is in the CWS for the first time since 1999, ending the longest drought among longtime SEC schools. Missouri, which last went to Omaha in 1964, didn’t join the league until July 2012.

The Crimson Tide will play Oklahoma at 2 p.m. Saturday. Texas and Georgia are in the same bracket.

Troy, making its Omaha debut, takes on West Virginia at 1 p.m. Friday with Ole Miss and North Carolina also in that bracket.

The Trojans swept Arkansas-Little Rock in a super regional series, capped by a 7-2 victory Saturday.

“Excitement. I just don’t have any words,” Troy right fielder Houston Markham said, describing the final super regional out. “That moment, the last double play, I kind of went black. I started screaming, untucking my jersey.”

With the Trojans and Crimson Tide, the state of Alabama has two teams in the CWS field for the first time since 1997. That year, Alabama and Auburn went, plus LSU and Mississippi State. LSU beat Alabama in the one-game championship round.

Under the current format, the two brackets will play a double-elimination format with the bracket winners meeting in a best-of-3 championship series.

The CWS went to a best-of-3 championship round in 2003.

This is the 34th consecutive CWS that the SEC has had at least one team reach Omaha. The SEC had never had more than four teams make it, a level reached three times 2019-24.

Current SEC teams have combined for 26 national championships.

The SEC has won six straight national championships with three of those title series pitting two SEC teams against each other. That does not include 2022 Oklahoma, which had yet to join the SEC and was runner-up to Ole Miss.

Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle is just the fourth coach to have led three teams to Omaha. He did so five times at TCU and twice at Texas A&M.

The Longhorns are in the CWS for the 39th time overall.

Alabama and Texas were also part of the Women’s College World Series that ended last week in Oklahoma City with Texas winning a second straight national championship.

No school has won both the CWS and WCWS in the same year, though four came close.

In 2022, Oklahoma was the softball champion and baseball runner-up, while 2007 Florida won the baseball title and was second in softball. The Gators were runners-up in both in 2011, while 2010 UCLA won in softball and was second in baseball.