Oklahoma baseball: Sooners make it into NCAAs, headed to Charlottesville Regional
By Chip Rouse
![Anthony Mackenzie is greeted after a score as the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) play the Oklahoma State Cowboys (OSU) in Bedlam baseball on May 19, 2023 at L Dale Mitchell Park in Norman, Okla. [Steve Sisney/For The Oklahoman]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2F3a334514b005e6976bac0ab44c99cfc4b4251436c9cfe5fc7e587b3cb8282131.jpg "Anthony Mackenzie is greeted after a score as the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) play the Oklahoma State Cowboys (OSU) in Bedlam baseball on May 19, 2023 at L Dale Mitchell Park in Norman, Okla. [Steve Sisney/For The Oklahoman]")
The three-day wait to find out its NCAA postseason fate is over. The Oklahoma baseball team is headed to the Charlottesville (Virginia) Regional, where the Sooners will face East Carolina in its opening game.
The Sooners (31-26) were considered a bubble team to make the 64-team NCAA Tournament field, but with a late-season surge they appear to have done enough in the view of the NCAA selection committee to secure their postseason tournament berth.
Oklahoma was one of the last four teams to make it into the NCAA postseason tournament (actually the next to last team selected) and are the No. 3 seed in the Charlottesville Regional, which also features host team Virginia, the No. 7 overall seed in the NCAA Baseball Championship, No. 2 seed East Carolina and Army, the No. 4 seed.
This will be the Sooners’ third consecutive appearance in the NCAA Baseball Tournament and fourth in the last seven seasons. Last season, despite going 33-20 in the regular season, OU hit fire in the postseason, winning the Big 12 Tournament championship and advancing all the way to the championship series of the College World Series before losing to Ole Miss and finishing as the national runner-up.
The Sooners have never faced East Carolina in baseball. The Pirates are the champions of the American Athletic Conference with an overall record of 45-17 and 18-6 in the AAC. The two team will play on Friday at a time still to be determined.
Oklahoma State (41-18), which eliminated OU in the Big 12 Tournament with an 8-3 win on Friday after losing to the Sooners 9-5 in the opening round, is the highest-seeded team from the Big 12 in the 2023 NCAA Tournament at No. 11. As a top-16 national seed, the Cowboys will serve as one of the 16 regional host sites.
Six Big 12 teams, including the Sooners, made this year’s NCAA Tournament in total.