OMAHA, Neb. – Don’t tell Murray State head coach Dan Skirka that there’s no crying in baseball.
“One of my wife’s favorite movies is ‘A League of Their Own.’ And they say there’s no crying in baseball. But throw that out the window,” Skirka said at the start of his press conference after Murray State was eliminated from the Men’s College World Series after being no-hit by Arkansas starter Gage Wood in a 3-0 elimination game loss, his son Keegan sitting on his lap.
“I’ll take the blame, I didn’t prepare these guys for what we saw today, because it was special,” Skirka said, though there should be no blame assigned to him. You can’t prepare a college baseball team for what Gage Wood, a like first round pick in next month’s Major League Baseball draft, threw at them Monday afternoon.
And forgive Skirka for crying, because he wasn’t the only one. The Racers were the darlings of this year’s College World Series, the unlikely No. 4 seed at the Oxford regional who beat Ole Miss, then went to Durham, N.C., and took two out of three from Duke to punch their ticket to Omaha.
His team, a mix of transfers, junior college guys, and guys he recruited came together and lifted a program from relative obscurity to national prominence in the space of three weeks.
“You know this was a cool experience, regional, super regional, and then getting to here,” said Murray State’s Carson Garner. “I think it’s something that every baseball player dreams of, but the best part is being able to do it with these guys. I told somebody the other day, ‘I get to wake up every day and go play the game I love with my 40 best friends.'”
Family and culture are the two pillars of Skirka’s program, and building from those two pillars, the players have faith in their process and each other.
“I mean we never lose faith in each other. Usually when a couple of us are struggling the other guys pick each other up. I mean, [Wood] had his stuff today and he never lost it,” said Murray State center fielder Dustin Mercer.
“No, we never lost faith. Having all year, we’re about to start now. About halfway through the game, I think we realized, ‘Hey, this guy’s, he’s dealing, he’s throwing a perfect game,'” Garner said. “And then, even in the ninth, we never lost faith. A three run ball game? we’ve made that come back all the time. So we never lost faith, we just couldn’t come through.”
Because they couldn’t come through, their time in Omaha is over, and they’ll be headed back to Kentucky, where the seniors will graduate and the others will prepare for next season. But Skirka will miss this group, and they him.
“They really challenged me to be a better coach. I know we’ve talked [about having] 28 newcomers this year and guys all walks of life, all backgrounds, and just reflecting on it a little bit this morning, that’s kind of what came to mind,” Skirka said. “We had seven freshmen, you know, you got to coach freshmen different than you do, you know, grad transfers. We had some guys cut from other programs, you we had some Juco guys, a lot of talent, guys that are good baseball players. And just a lot of different stories.”
One of Skirka’s team building exercises is to have each member of his team give a presentation to the others about themselves. In making themselves vulnerable in front of their teammates, they forge bonds that build shared faith in and enable achievements like winning an NCAA regional, or super regional, for the first time.
During the presentations, Skirka explained, “The guys started opening up and sharing some of their life stories, kind of opened my eyes about some of the things they’ve dealt with on and off the field, or maybe not dealt with.”
It’s an exercise in “just knowing who they were and trying to get through those 28 guys as well as the returners and build those relationships and get them to gel as a team. I tell them, the very first meeting I want them to leave as the best versions of themselves. And the bad part, some of these guys only get one year with them, some of them it’s two, Carson, Dusty, I’m lucky to have four with those guys.”
Asked what this magical run to Omaha will mean for the Racers baseball program going forward, Skirka smiled. “I have no clue. I have no clue, man. It’s a really good question. But I have no idea. I was talking to [Arkansas] coach [Dave] Van Horn before the game, like, you do wanna enjoy it, but at the same time, we’re competing,” Skirka said. “So I haven’t really thought about future at all. … I just know that, again, really, really blessed to be a part of it. And hopefully, everybody keeps supporting these guys moving forward, because they showed that they can. I’m gonna encourage them to show up next year at Johnny Reagan Field like they did here.”
Johnny Reagan Field, the Racers home ballpark, has a capacity of around 800, and Murray State often plays home games in front of fans that can be numbered by dozens rather than thousands. That will likely change next year because of this team’s accomplishments.
“I heard all these guys saying, don’t be sad that it’s over. Smile because it happened,” Skirka said. “And [Jonathan Hogart] might have summed it up for both of us, ’cause we’re sad, but we’re really glad that this thing thing happened and so many people were a part of it.”
Photo: Murray State head coach Dan Skirka jogs back to the dugout after a visit to the mound during an NCAA regional baseball game against Mississippi on Friday, May 30, 2025, Oxford, Miss. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)
