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Elizabeth Merrill
OMAHA, Neb. — Dan Tauken would not have any NIL offers, and did not count on many perks taking part in baseball for Murray State. The Racers outfielder yearned for only one factor: cup holders.
Murray State bused in all places from its campus in Kentucky in the course of the 2025 common season, together with an almost seven-hour one-way journey to Valparaiso in Indiana. The staff is consistently on the go, consuming lots of Jimmy John’s and Panda Categorical within the bus with nowhere to place their drinks.
Till now. On Wednesday, Tauken and his teammates awoke to a shock — a non-public jet was whisking them to Omaha for the mid-major program’s first journey to the Males’s School World Collection. The gamers had their very own aisles to unfold out on, Tauken stated, and snacks have been doled out each half-hour. Better of all, each seat had a cup holder.
“It was superior,” Tauken stated. “We lastly felt like persons are acknowledging the work we have been placing in, and it feels good.”
Murray State’s unbelievable postseason run continues when it performs No. 15 UCLA on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET (ESPN) within the first spherical of the MCWS. The Racers are simply the fourth regional 4-seed to make it to Omaha for the reason that postseason area expanded in 1999 — it is the equal of a 13-to-16-seed reaching the Elite Eight of the NCAA basketball event.
The Racers are the epitome of the have-nots of faculty baseball. Murray State performs in an 800-seat stadium with large holes within the outfield partitions and a washed-out previous scoreboard, and there is a Lowe’s sitting within the backdrop.
The gamers are in command of tarp obligation. Some days, they’ve to put the tarp down and roll it up a number of instances.
“After we take the tarp off, it is all the time a river in proper area,” Tauken stated. “And in the course of the season towards Southern Illinois, the outfield was principally a pool and we needed to play as a result of it was a convention collection.
“So each step you took, the water would splash up and it was form of enjoyable. I imply, it was slightly bit harmful, nevertheless it was enjoyable.”
So how have the Racers been in a position to go the place many a lot larger-budgeted packages have not?
Baseball is all about momentum, coach Dan Skirka stated. The Racers gained the Missouri Valley Convention event — the MVC is an efficient league, he insists, regardless of its lone NCAA regional bid — after which obtained what they noticed as a good draw at No. 10 Ole Miss.
They’d crushed the Rebels final yr in 15 innings and performed them shut this season in a 10-inning loss in Oxford, Mississippi. The familiarity allowed the Racers to keep away from being intimidated by the 11,000-plus Ole Miss followers and to rally after getting hammered by the Rebels 19-8 within the double-elimination regional.
Baseball, Skirka stated, can be about individuals and relationships.
“They’re simply nice children,” he stated. “They do not give attention to what we do not have. They only get to work. They like to play, they like to compete with one another, and it simply goes a good distance.
“Simply attending to work and creating and getting higher. And once we bought an opportunity to compete, they competed, and typically you win, and typically you lose. However they saved creating, and clearly they’ve gotten sizzling right here within the postseason, they usually rode it.”
The Racers ended up beating Ole Miss 12-11 to advance to the supers, then took down Duke within the Durham Tremendous Regional.
Outfielder Jonathan Hogart stood in a hallway at Charles Schwab Discipline on Thursday as gamers and coaches of a few of the powerhouses in faculty baseball handed by, and in some methods it nonetheless did not appear actual. Hogart is grounded sufficient to say that he would not take note of the logos on the uniforms, and assured sufficient to say that he believes his staff can do something.
However he’ll additionally concede that if somebody instructed him in January that that is the place they’d be in mid-June, he would not have believed it.
“Completely not,” he stated. “It is all the time a dream.”
He has sat on his sofa this time of yr, watching the MCWS, and thought the gamers “regarded like celebrities on TV.”
“It takes lots of luck and lots of grit,” he stated. “And in addition a very gifted staff, which we now have.”
After the Racers landed at Eppley Airfield, Skirka took them to Charles Schwab Discipline. Skirka stated strolling into the 24,000-seat stadium was an “out-of-body expertise” — that is 23,200 extra seats than he is used to.
He did not say something once they walked by the stadium Wednesday. Skirka simply needed the gamers to see the Murray State banner and soak the whole lot in. His 9-year-old son, Keegan, was standing beside him.
“That is fairly cool, Dad,” Keegan instructed him.
Tauken walked off the sector Thursday and was stopped within the tunnel by autograph seekers. He caught himself wanting across the stadium a number of instances, however make no mistake — Tauken’s ft will probably be on the bottom Saturday, and notably dry.
“They do handle the puddles,” he stated.