The Univ. of Oklahoma baseball team is one win away from a national championship after winning Game 1 of the College World Series Finals against the Univ. of North Carolina on Saturday. Oklahoma won national titles in baseball in 1951 and 1994 and will go for its third on Sunday. UNC, looking for its first, will try to force a deciding Game 3 on Monday (AP, 6/20). Oklahoma, which finished 11th in the SEC during the regular season, eliminated No. 2 seed Georgia Tech, No. 15 Kansas and No. 3 Georgia en route to the CWS Final (THE ATHLETIC, 6/20).
For the “first time in a long time,” the baseball team looked “less like a program trying to catch up to the rest of Oklahoma athletics and more like one of its centerpieces.” When AD Roger Denny first arrived at Oklahoma, he “noticed the obvious gap in the baseball program’s stadium facilities, training spaces and overall environment.” Denny said, “You recognize that we need to get better there.” Just three days ago, the Board of Regents approved an estimated total project budget of $49M for phase one and phase two of the Kimrey Family Stadium renovation project. The improvements, which include “upgrades to team facilities, the seating bowl and fan amenities, are scheduled to begin later this summer.” Denny said, “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that the support we have for our program and the energy around those guys gets better every time they take the field” (OKLAHOMAN, 6,19).
