NAIA BASEBALL: KCAC teams left out in the cold in World Series play in Idaho
It’s just not the Year of Baseball Championship Destiny for Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference teams.
Last week, the KCAC stormed into the NAIA regionals with four teams — nearly 10 percent of the field — and almost a fifth (Oklahoma Wesleyan University).
The quartet of KCAC representatives in the 46-team field included Tabor (Kan.), McPherson (Kan.), Ottawa (Kan.) and Kansas Wesleyan.
But, none of the KCAC powerhouses survived regional competition, fizzling out like last year's July Fourth sparklers. None of them earned a spot in the Final 10 that will play at the NAIA World Series. None of the conference teams advanced even to their respective regional finals.
Ottawa had been seeded No. 1 in the Montgomery (Ala.) regional, but lost twice to No. 2 seed Faulkner (Ala.).
As mentioned, Oklahoma Wesleyan University came up just short of being the fifth team picked for the NAIA regionals.
The Eagles (38-19) just missed out on playing in the NAIA national tourney for only the second time in the last eight full seasons. (There were was no NAIA tourney in 2020 due to the virus-caused spring sports shutdown).
Other than that year, the only other time since 2014 that OKWU hadn’t played in the regionals was 2016.
Not only was KCAC frozen out of the 2022 NAIA World Series, but the only midwestern team to make the grade was MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.).
The Oklahoma City Stars also failed to qualify for the trip to Lewiston, Idaho, the site of the world series.
During the regular season, OKWU defeated world series qualifier Bellevue (Neb.), 3-2.
The world series opens Friday with a slate of four games, starting at 8:30 a.m. — MidAmerica Nazarene (39-16) vs. Georgia Gwinnett (45-14), Bellevue (47-11) vs. LSU Shreveport (51-6), Webber International (41-20) vs. Faulkner (37-15) and Westmont (Calif.) (45-11) vs. Lewis-Clark (Idaho) (53-5)
Rounding out the field are the top two seeds, southeastern (Fla.) (54-3) and Tennessee Wesleyan (54-6).
Georgia Gwinnett is the defending national champion.
The tourney is set to end on either June 2 or June 3.
OKWU, which is coached by Kirk Kelley, has qualified three times since 2014 for the world series (2014, coach Matt Parker; 2017, Parker; and 2021, Kelley). The 2014 squad finished third in the nation.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Focus on NAIA national baseball tourney
