For the first time in program history, Murray State baseball is playing in the Men’s College World Series.
The Racers beat the Duke Blue Devils in a best-of-three series in the Durham Super Regional to punch their ticket to “The Greatest Show on Dirt.”
The Racers jumped out to an early lead thanks to a leadoff home run off the bat of redshirt senior outfielder Jonathan Hogart. It was his eighth leadoff home run of the season, which leads all of Division 1 baseball.
Senior infielder Carson Garner doubled later in the first inning and was driven in by redshirt sophomore Dom Decker to give the Racers a 2-0 lead.
The Blue Devils broke into the scoring column in the bottom half of the first inning thanks to a sacrifice fly before leaving two runners on base.
Duke tied the game with a home run to right field in the bottom of the third inning, and then took the lead in the bottom of the fourth inning with a home run to center field.
Both team’s defenses took over for the next two innings before Hogart hit his second home run of the game and tied the game at three.
Junior infielder Luke Mistone led off the eighth inning by hitting his fourth home run of the season and pushing the Racers back in front. Junior catcher Will Vierling was hit by a pitch in the next at-bat and was brought home thanks to a triple off the bat of resdhirt senior outfielder Dan Tauken to make the Murray State lead 5-3.
The Blue Devils responded with a solo home run to make the score 5-4 going into the ninth inning.
Duke made quick work of the Murray State batters in the top of the ninth and were down to their final three outs. Murray State head coach Dan Skirka called on junior right-hander Graham Kelham to pitch in the bottom of the seventh and trusted him to finish the game, despite getting the save in the Racers’ 19-9 win on Sunday.
Kelham hit the first batter with a pitch to put the tying run on first base. The Blue Devils next batter flew out to left field.
Kelham got the next batter to ground into a fielder’s choice after an interference call was overturned. Murray State’s celebration was put on hold as they had to face at least one more Blue Devil batter.
The next batter for Duke ended up being their last, as he hit a groundball to first base and Mistone fielded and touched the first base bag to send the Racers into the Men’s College World Series.
Hogart, in an interview with SportsCenter while holding the Super Regional trophy, said words can’t describe the victory.
“Glory to God, first of all,” Hogart said. “Without Him, none of us would be here.”
Hogart also gave credit to Skirka.
“Hats off to (him),” Hogart said. “He puts in way too much time, way too much effort for us not to put in all that we have for him.”
“What hasn’t (Skirka) done? He’s given us countless hours and time away from his family. He’s poured his love and support, blood, sweat and tears into this program and each player.”
He also thanked his teammates and the “grind” they do for Murray State.
“We grind for this program, and we grind for this city.”
Right after Hogart’s interview, SportsCenter displayed the odds for each of the eight teams to win the College World Series. While the odds displayed have Murray State picked dead to last to win in Omaha, Kyle Peterson, one of ESPN’s college baseball analysts, says the Racers have a chance to win.
“I’ll tell you this—their betting odds were +9,000 before (beating Duke), and (SportsCenter) just showed the odds right now and they’re +2,000,” Peterson said. “Obviously, somebody thinks (Murray State) got a decent chance now, at least a better chance than they did about four hours ago.”
“If you go to (Ole Miss) and beat them, then you go on the road and beat a Duke team, then you got a chance to beat anybody,” Peterson said. “That’s what we love, those are the games we like to see, so they got a chance. They got a chip and a chair. Murray State’s got it done.”
The Racers will play UCLA Bruins at 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 14 in Omaha, Nebraska.
