Creighton’s playing in the NCAA Tournament. Sure, in 2011-12 we wrote that sentence for men’s and women’s basketball and men’s soccer. Now it is the baseball team’s turn, however improbable the idea seemed about 10 days ago.
We chronicled all of Creighton’s baseball season at WBR, from a frustrating regular season to a remarkable championship run through last week’s MVC Tournament. The payoff for Ed Servais and his team is a return trip to the NCAA Tournament. The payoff for us at WBR? Getting to write that first sentence again.
Creighton punched its ticket to a second straight NCAA Tournament with a Valley tourney title (Mike Spomer/WBR)
So the Bluejays are still under .500 for the season. So they face the #2 national seed UCLA Bruins in the Los Angeles Regional. So they have some of the worst odds of any team in the field of 64 to advance out of their regional. Try telling that to Servias: I’ll warn you in advance, don’t actually do it. Ed believes his team can win. Just like he did before they traveled to Springfield for the Valley tourney.
Watch Servais talk about his team here, and tell me you aren’t excited for tonight’s game against the Bruins.
Well alright, then. Let’s get set for the L.A. Regional.
5:00 p.m. (CT) — #2 San Diego Toreros (40-15) vs. #3 New Mexico Lobos (36-22)
9:00 p.m. (CT) — #1 UCLA Bruins (42-14) vs. #4 Creighton Bluejays (26-28)
Media Menu
Like they have all season, John Bishop and David Gustafson will broadcast Creighton’s games this weekend in L.A. The Bluejays will be on 1620 AM The Zone in Omaha (stream online here), with pre-game analysis starting 15 minutes before every CU games this weekend.
UCLA’s website will feature a free, live video webcast of every game at the L.A. Regional. So, you can watch the Jays here.
Follow live stats and the Creighton Twitter feeds @gocreighton and @cu_baseball), too.
Interested in gathering with other Jays fans to watch the games? DJ’s Dugout downtown will host viewing parties for Creighton games all weekend, starting with Friday night’s 9 p.m. CT game against UCLA.
Meet the Teams
New Mexico earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament by winning the Mountain West Conference Tournament for the second straight season. The Lobos are on a nine-game winning streak.
San Diego won 40 games for the third time in the baseball program’s history. The preseason favorite in the West Coast Conference, a loss to Pepperdine in the last game of the regular season gave the Waves the WCC championship and left the Toreros in second place by one game.
UCLA enters the NCAA Tournament for the 18th time in school history. The Bruins tied with Arizona for the Pac-12 championship. They’ll host the regional in hopes of playing in Jackie Robinson Stadium again next weekend against the winner of the College Station Regional, with a trip to what would be UCLA’s fourth College World Series appearance on the line.
On the Mound
Creighton’s Ty Blach (6-5, 2.64 ERA) vs. UCLA’s Adam Plutko (9-3, 2.79)
Last year, Jonas Dufek dominated the Georgia Bulldogs in Creighton’s game one win in the Corvallis Regional. Ty Blach pitched against the host Oregon State Beavers in CU’s second game, picking up the loss despite allowing just one earned run (three total) and seven hits while striking out seven and issuing one walk in six innings. Bluejays fans are hoping it is Blach’s turn to do what Dufek did last season; dominate in the opening game of a regional and send his team into the winner’s bracket.
Creighton's hopes for an upset rest on the left arm of Ty Blach (Mike Spomer/WBR)
For as hot as Blach’s been in his most recent outings (the MVC Championship Game on short rest not included), his foe on the mound Friday night, Plutko, might have him beat. The sophomore all-Pac-12 performer is 4-0 with a 0.65 ERA in his last four starts (27.2 innings). He was an all-conference pick as a freshman last year, pitching on Sundays behind first-round draft picks Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer.
Both Creighton and UCLA place a lot of trust and a ton of innings on their relievers. The Bruin bullpen is 15-5 with a 2.29 ERA and 15 saves in 175 combined appearances. David Berg, Scott Griggs, Ryan Deeter (Touch my monkey! TOUCH IT!), and Grant Watson lead the Pac-12 in appearances. The Bluejays rely on a ‘pen featuring experienced relievers Mark Winkelman, Reese McGraw, Chase Webb, and Kurt Spomer, all of whom pitched in last year’s NCAA Tournament trip.
At the Plate
So, the question becomes, can Creighton’s offense muster enough support for Blach and the Bluejays’ bullpen against Plutko and the Bruins’ pen? The Jays are statistically one of the worst offensive teams in the nation. The Bruins are not. UCLA bats .310 as a team; CU hits at a .248 clip. The Jays are the only team in the region batting below .300 as a team.
Individually, Jeff Gelalich leads the way for UCLA. He’s batting .367 with a .540 slugging percentage and a .458 on-base percentage. Tyler Heineman (.359/.420/.461) and Cody Keefer (.338/.398/.408) tout potent bats, too, as do Trevor Brown (.326/.433/.379) and Beau Amaral (.313/.442/.394).
Nick Judkins is Creighton’s only regular hitting .300 or better (.308/.374/.402). Chance Ross is nearing that mark, too (.296/.427/.401). They were two of the Bluejays responsible for a resurgent offensive showing in Springfield. CU hit .357 as a team in the MVC Tournament, slugged at a .448 clip, and scored 34 runs in the four wins. The bats are warming up at the right time, and the Bluejays have 10 or more hits in six of the previous seven games.
Facts, Figures, Fodder
Shannon Pivovar and the good folks at the Creighton Sports Information Department did a great job with the team’s NCAA Tournament notes. So many great nuggets of info to choose from. Here are just a few (click here to read the notes in their entirety).
Creighton is 13-18 in postseason play in program history, and 5-12 since the 1991 team went to the College World Series Mike Geber leads active Creighton hitters with a .300 average in NCAA Tournament games… 21 guys from last year’s NCAA Tournament team will travel to L.A. for this weekend’s games, including 14 who played in at least one game in Corvallis last year… The Pac-12 is the third-best baseball conference in the nation according to the RPI at warrennolan.com. The Valley is fifth… Ed Servais is the only CU skipper to take the Jays to the postseason three or more times… At least one #4 seed has advanced to the Regional final in every season since 2006… The 2006 Missouri and 2008 Fresno State teams are the only #4 seeds to make Super Regionals since that round’s inception in 1999. The Bulldogs won the College World Series that season.