College Baseball
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College baseball week in review: SEC powers flexing their muscles

What’s more surprising?

That there are four SEC teams at 8-1 in league games after three weeks. Or that there are five teams with one win or fewer?

Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas all recorded sweeps to remain in a four-way tie for first place. LSU, which swept Mississippi State, is one game back at 7-2.

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On the other end of the spectrum, Florida, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Texas A&M are all 1-8, while Missouri is 0-9. On that list of have-nots are two of the final four teams in the 2024 College World Series (Florida and Texas A&M) and another team that won the national title four years ago (Mississippi State).

Texas A&M, the preseason No. 1 team, visits Tennessee this weekend and still has series remaining at Arkansas, at Texas and at Georgia and vs. LSU in College Station.

Around the horn

Georgia Tech coach Danny Hall announced he will retire following the 2025 season. Hall, 70, has a 1,433-780-1 record in 38 seasons as a coach, six at Kent State (1988-1993) and 32 at Georgia Tech (1994-2025).

He guided Kent State to the NCAA Tournament in his final two seasons with the MAC program and has taken Georgia Tech to the postseason 24 times, highlighted by three trips to the College World Series (1994, 2002, 2006).

The Yellow Jackets are 22-6 overall and 8-4 in the ACC this season.

In the era of free transfers, it’s not uncommon for players to face their former teams the very next season. That, however, doesn’t make it not weird.

We had two notable occurrences during the weekend, with very different results.

On Friday night, right-handed pitcher Collin McKinney got the start for Arizona against Baylor, where he went 3-6 with a 6.70 ERA as a weekend starter for the Bears as a redshirt freshman in 2024. It didn’t go great. McKinney didn’t make it out of the second inning, getting pulled after giving up two earned runs in 1.1 innings. He allowed only one hit but walked four, all in the second inning.

For the season, McKinney is 0-1 with a 2.00 ERA and a 1.370 WHIP. Opposing batters are hitting only .191 against him, but he has walked 19 in 27 innings.

In Nashville, Arkansas first baseman Cam Kozeal terrorized his former team, going 5-for-12 with three home runs — including two on Friday night — and eight RBIs as the Razorbacks swept Vanderbilt.

Last season, Kozeal hit .284 with five home runs and 28 RBIs in 43 games as a second baseman/DH at Vanderbilt. He has transitioned to first base as a sophomore at Arkansas and is hitting .379 with five home runs and 24 RBIs for the Hogs.

Liberty is off to a rather ordinary 2-4 start in Conference USA — more on that in a minute — but perhaps no mid-major program has done a better job of picking up quality wins in midweek action. The Flames, 19-9 overall, have wins at NC State and at Duke and at home vs. Wake Forest and Virginia. They did lose two games to Clemson this month, leaving them with a 4-2 record vs. ACC teams with five games remaining (at Virginia, at Wake, vs. Duke and a home and home with Virginia Tech).

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About that conference record — in one of the strangest developments of the 2025 season, Liberty was forced to forfeit the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader at Jacksonville State because it used a player who was not on the 27-man roster. The Flames split the other two games of the weekend series.

Imagine hitting for the cycle. Imagine completing the cycle with a home run in the bottom of the ninth. Imagine that home run was a grand slam, and it walked off your bitter rival. Well, Florida State shortstop Alex Lodise doesn’t have to imagine anything — that was his reality on Tuesday night in the Seminoles’ 8-4 win over Florida in Jacksonville.

Florida State led 3-2 entering the ninth inning, but the Gators scored two runs to take a 4-3 lead. In the bottom of the ninth, the Noles tied it on an infield single by Gage Harrelson, and then Lodise ended it with his blast to right field.

It was the first cycle by a Seminoles player since 2019.

Virginia snapped a five-game losing streak with a potentially season-saving sweep over Stanford in Charlottesville, punctuated by a thrilling 9-8 win in 10 innings on Saturday. The Cavaliers improved to 15-11 overall and 6-6 in the ACC.

Stanford, meanwhile, has lost six straight in league play after opening its first season in the ACC with five wins in its first six games. The pitching staff, expected to be a strength, has allowed 65 combined runs during the six-game ACC slide.

In the three games at UVA, Stanford starters Matt Scott, Christian Lim and Joey Volchko gave up 13 combined earned runs and 20 hits in 13.2 innings.

In perhaps the most surprising result of the weekend, Ohio State took two of three from Oregon in Columbus. The Buckeyes lost the opener 7-0 on Friday night to drop to 0-7 in the Big Ten but swept a doubleheader — by scores of 11-10 and 8-6 — on Saturday.

Ohio State is 8-16 under first-year coach Justin Haire, who guided Campbell to a Regional five times in his final six full seasons at the Big South school.

Oregon entered the weekend at 7-2 in the Big Ten and ranked No. 11 in The Athletic’s top 25. It was the Ducks’ first trip out of the Pacific Time Zone this season. They opened Big Ten play with a road trip to USC and then hosted Minnesota and Rutgers.

Cal Poly is the only team in the nation that has played at least three conference series and has yet to lose a league game. The Mustangs swept UC Davis on the road during the weekend to improve to 18-8 overall and 9-0 in the Big West.

UC Irvine is still considered the team to beat in the league. The Anteaters are 21-5 overall and 11-1 in the Big West after sweeping UC Riverside. Irvine visits San Luis Obispo to play Cal Poly at the end of April.

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Hawaii is lurking at 8-4 but has to play the two best teams in the league — Cal Poly and at UC Irvine — on the road.

USCB, the preseason favorite, is 5-7 in the Big West after losing two of three at Long Beach State.

Here’s a good way to set the tone for a weekend series on the road: score seven runs before the other team’s starting pitcher records a second out.

That’s what Virginia Tech did on Friday night at Wake Forest, scoring nine runs total in the first inning en route to a 13-2 win in eight innings. On Saturday, the Hokies were a bit more methodical, scoring three in the first, two in the second and three in the third in an 11-8 win.

Wake’s starting pitchers in those first two games — Logan Lunceford and Matthew Dallas — combined to give up 14 earned runs in 2.1 innings of work. Not great.

The Deacons finally got a quality start on Sunday — Blake Morningstar allowed only one earned run and five hits in seven innings — but Virginia Tech scored four runs in the top of the ninth and held on for a 6-5 win to complete the sweep.

It’s safe to say that Texas A&M coach Michael Earley wasn’t thrilled with Kentucky coach Nick Mingione late Sunday afternoon. Enjoy.

And finally

• Northwestern is 5-4 in the Big Ten after taking a series at Maryland. The Wildcats, 12-13 overall under second-year coach Ben Greenspan, have not had a winning Big Ten season since 2017.

• Xavier took two of three from UConn in a huge early-season series between the two preseason favorites in the Big East. Xavier has won six of seven, including a midweek win a Kentucky, to even its overall record at 14-14.

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• West Virginia gave up 36 combined runs in its three games at BYU. No problem. The Mountaineers won the series, two games to one, by outscoring the Cougars 39-22 in the final two games.

• It’s getting late early for Oklahoma State. The Cowboys dropped to 12-13 overall and 1-6 in the Big 12 after getting swept at Kansas during the weekend. They are in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012, the year before Josh Holliday’s arrival.

• Speaking of baseball in Kansas … Kansas State is all alone in first place in the Big 12 at 8-1 after sweeping Texas Tech in Manhattan. Kansas is two games back at 6-3. The two rivals play in Lawrence in mid-April.

• Nebraska has been one of the biggest disappointments of the 2025 season. A Top 25 team in many preseason polls, the Cornhuskers entered the weekend at 10-14 overall and 2-7 in the Big Ten. Could Will Bolt’s club be on the verge of turning things around? Nebraska took two of three from Oregon State in a marquee nonconference series in Lincoln during the weekend.

• Duke has bounced back from a slow start and is 19-10 overall and 7-5 in the ACC after taking two of three from NC State in Durham.

(Photo of Kuhio Aloy courtesy of Arkansas Athletics)

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