Kentucky baseball out of NCAA Tournament with loss at West Virginia
· Yahoo Sports
MORGANTOWN, WV — Kentucky baseball dealt with a range of emotions in the span of week.
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On May 25, the Wildcats had a stressful time watching the NCAA Tournament selection show. They entered the day no guarantee to make the field. And they didn't see their name surface on the 64-team bracket until the 16th (and last) regional was revealed.
Six days later, the team that eked into the tournament nearly was a regional champion.
But it wasn't to be.
Kentucky led by three runs, needing just three outs Sunday to sweep through the regional without a loss. West Virginia refused to let that happen, rallying in the ninth inning for an 11-9 win.
That astounding loss carried into the first seven innings of Monday's winner-take-all tilt for UK, as it trailed 5-1. The Wildcats then put four on the board in the eighth to knot it at 5-all. But the ever-resilient Mountaineers answered back, lifting themselves off the mat to earn a 6-5, walk-off victory in 10 innings at Kendrick Family Ballpark — and in the process, end the Bat Cats' season.
Kentucky and coach Nick Mingione finish the 2026 campaign with a record of 33-23.
West Virginia improved to 43-15 and moved into the Super Regional round for the third straight year. But 2026 is different: The Mountaineers will host a Super Regional for the first time in program history. WVU welcomes Cal Poly — the champion of the Los Angeles Regional, where top overall seed UCLA bowed out of the tournament after just three games — to town later this week. West Virginia hopes its Super Regional ends with another title, which would put them into the College World Series for the first time ever.
A little more than 300 miles westward, the Wildcats will wonder what could have been.
This story will be updated.
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This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky baseball vs West Virginia score, WVU to NCAA Super Regionals