OMAHA, Neb. – You can’t win the national championship on the first day of the Men’s College World Series, and you can’t be eliminated, either.
Perhaps that’s the beauty of the double elimination format, but it does make winning a national title significantly harder. From the loser’s bracket, a team needs to win four games in a row to get to the best-of-three championship series. It’s not an easy task, but it’s a spot the Louisville Cardinals and Arizona Wildcats find themselves in after dropping their openers at Charles Schwab Field Friday.
“When we get a loss during the season, we usually come back with an edge,” said Louisville’s Patrick Forbes, who struck out 10 over 5 1/3 innings in the Cardinals’ 4-3 loss to Oregon State. “We’re definitely hungry after this win. That’s why they give you two losses. It’s not like basketball where you lose once and you’re out. That’s what makes this game great. Looking forward to how we respond.”
This isn’t the first time this postseason that Louisville has been tested. After finishing 10th in the Atlantic Coast Conference, they were promptly bounced by Pitt in the first game of the conference tournament 13-11, they bounced back, winning the Nashville regional in three games, bouncing No. 1 national seed Vanderbilt in the process. With Vanderbilt out, they hosted a super regional, and eliminated Miami in three games at home.
Meanwhile, their Sunday afternoon opponent, the Arizona Wildcats, are hunkering down for a battle at 2 p.m. EDT Sunday afternoon. They want to send the Cardinals back to Louisville and stay here in Omaha a little longer.
“It’s back to a foxhole mentality, playing for each other and worrying about baseball,” said Arizona head coach Chip Hale. “We got a lot of family here, a lot of friends. They’re going to have to make hard decisions to get themselves ready for Sunday. Luckily, we have a day off. We have a nice event tomorrow we’ll go to, get a good practice in. And then we’ll get ready for one of the two teams that’s playing after this.”
It’s not easy from here. In 78 years of the College World Series, only 12 teams have lost their first game and gone on to win the national championship. Arizona has done it twice, in 1976 and 1980, before Hale played for the program from 1982-86.
“They’ve done it all year. We’ve lost Fridays and won the series. It’s going to be tougher. This is that four-team deal,” Hale said. “So it’s not just like winning two more games. We’re going to have to win a bunch of games. To do that we’ll have to fight and battle and scratch.”
His Wildcats haven’t lost back-to-back games since early May, when they lost four straight, dropping a series finale to Texas Christian 13-6 at home on May 2, a mid-week game to Grand Canyon at home 5-2, and then the first two games of a road series at Utah May 8-9. It was only the third time all season Arizona had lost two or more consecutive games — they dropped two in a row at home against Baylor March 28-29 and all three games they played at the Shriners Children’s College Showdown at Globe Life Park to open the season.
That last game at Globe Life Park was a 13-1 eight-inning loss to Louisville, but it was also more than four months ago. Only one pitcher, Arizona reliever Tony Pluta, appeared in that February game between those two teams and pitched on Friday in Omaha.
At this point, Louisville head coach Dan McDonnell said, “It’s a whole new season. I mean, we’ll look at our scouting report and look at that game, but, my gosh, [that game was] February 16, and so it’s really a whole new game. And we’re into scouting reports. We want to be organized and we want to be prepared. But this is about us. I’ve got to make sure these guys don’t get too down on themselves.”
No one likes to lose, but it’s part of the game.
“It’s supposed to hurt. But I just gotta get them back and get them some rest,” McDonnell said. “As we like to say, win the day. So I’ve got to get out there tomorrow and make sure the guys win the day and get ready for Sunday.”
The team that wins the off day Saturday is the team that will win the game on Sunday.
Photo: Arizona Head Coach Chip Hale walks back to the dugout during an NCAA College World Series baseball game on Friday, June 13, 2025 in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/Cory Eads)
