MURRAY \u2014 Less than a day removed from making history by becoming the first Murray State baseball team to advance to the NCAA Championship Super Regionals, the Racers came home on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
And as their bus steamed north on the return journey from where they captured the historic Oxford Regional title in Mississippi, Head Coach Dan Skirka received a text on his phone that got his attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we were about 45 minutes out (still in the state of Tennessee) and they said a crowd was growing. I saw that and didn\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d said the seven-year Racer skipper, who watched his team defeat host Mississippi, 12-11, in Monday night\u2019s winner-take-all second game of the regional championship series.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He and his team soon discovered what was waiting at the end of the journey, capped by an escort from units with the Murray State Police Department, City of Murray Fire and Police Departments and Calloway County Sheriff\u2019s Office. Racer Nation was lining the entrance to Roy Stewart Stadium, greeting the first players off the bus with loud cheers as they soon were absorbed into the hoard.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty neat,\u201d said Skirka. \u201cThis community has been awesome. Our alumni have been fantastic and we\u2019ve just been hearing from a lot of different people. Skirka indicated throughout the weekend at Swayze Field \u2014 home of Southeastern Conference powerhouse and 2022 College World Series champion Ole Miss \u2014 that he had been receiving texts from multiple sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they\u2019ve been watching. I heard there were a lot of watch parties in town and that\u2019s really neat. It\u2019s a great story and (the players) have earned that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Particularly touching to the coach was the presence of many children Tuesday, almost all of whom were seeking autographs from their conquering heroes. Skirka was even asked to sign his name to some items, namely baseballs and jerseys.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s neat. But I know all of the work they put in, and the grind,\u201d Skirka said of seeing his players reap the rewards of hours upon hours of rigorous preparation. \u201cWe talk about all of the stuff behind the scenes, we talk about all of the \u2018work in the dark\u2019 and to see them get rewarded for that and shine in the light. That\u2019s what makes them special.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see this and be part of the first time in a Super Regional for Murray State is incredible,\u201d said Racer first baseman Luke Mistone after emerging from the bus and immediately mingling with the throng. \u201cThis feeling with seeing everybody come out and support us \u2026 there\u2019s nothing that beats it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the love and support of Racer Nation \u2026 this is awesome,\u201d said outfielder Jonathan Hogart, who was the first player to emerge from the bus. He also received a very loud reception as he was the one that caught the fly ball for the third and final out Monday night. \u201cEven with summer break, we\u2019ve got athletes here (entering summer workouts in other sports) still showing up for us today, along with our families and friends. It\u2019s awesome.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGod bless them all \u2026 and go Racers!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MURRAY \u2014 Less than a day removed from making history by becoming the first Murray State baseball team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2289],"tags":[5,648,1299,1694,2341,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-78106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-college-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-college-baseball","10":"tag-local","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-baseball","13":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}