The Atlantic Coast Conference is off to a strong start on the second weekend of the NCAA Division I baseball tournament.
Only a late rally by independent Oregon State to beat ACC member Florida State kept it from being seriously super.
Of the ACC’s nine programs that made the initial 64-team field for the NCAA bracket, five advanced through last weekend’s double-elimination regionals, and of the league’s four programs playing Friday as the best-of-three super regionals got underway, half of them were winners.
The exceptions came via Florida State losing to the Beavers in 10 innings — after giving up a three-run lead in the ninth — and an all-ACC matchup between unseeded teams at the Louisville Super Regional, a pairing that guarantees the league will have at least one representative at the College World Series when the eight-team event begins next week in Omaha, Nebraska.
There were four super regional openers in all Friday, with No. 13 seed Coastal Carolina of the Sun Belt Conference and host Auburn of the Southeastern Conference playing the late matchup, which didn’t finish until early Saturday. The SEC had 13 teams make the NCAA field, but No. 4 Auburn was one of just four from the conference to advance to super regionals, with No. 1 Vanderbilt and No. 2 Texas among the regional casualties.