Coral Gables baseball regional is set

The 2023 NCAA baseball tournament has been revealed, and the Miami Hurricanes know who they will play. The Canes received the #9 tournament seed, just one short of being assured of being at home for the duration of regional and super regional play. They will open their Coral Gables regional play against the Maine Black Bears. The other two regional teams are Louisiana and Texas.

Maine won the America East tournament title, finishing 32-19 on the year. Louisiana won 40 games and came up short in the Sun Belt Conference tournament title game to Southern Miss. Texas came into the Big 12 tournament hot, having won 6 of its last 7 weekend series. Going 0-2 in the tourney dashed their hosting hopes, but they remain a potent threat in Coral Gables.

The Coral Gables regional is up with #8 national seed Stanford. The Cardinal flamed out in the PAC-12 tournament after a strong finish to the regular season, where they hadn’t lost a series since mid-April at Oregon. If both top seeds win their respective regionals Miami would travel to Palo Alto, CA to face the Cardinal in the super regionals.

It makes you wonder if Miami could have gotten that extra bump up to a national seed if they had found a way to hold on against Clemson in the ACC Championship game, especially seeing how the committee rewarded the Tigers with the #4 overall seed. Unfortunately, Miami folded in the bottom of the seventh inning, allowing 8 runs to Clemson in a come-from-ahead 11-5 loss.

No matter. The focus should be on Coral Gables and improving from last year’s abysmal performance there, with losses to eventual national champion Ole Miss and Arizona ending Miami’s season prematurely. A potential Miami-Texas matchup on day two would be as marquee as it gets in this tournament.

Go Canes!