From 800 fanatics to 24,000: Murray State’s Cinderella run to Omaha

OMAHA, Neb. — Dan Tauken does not have any NIL offers, and did not be expecting many perks taking part in baseball for Murray State. The Racers outfielder yearned for only one factor: cup holders.

Murray State bused all over the place from its campus in Kentucky all through the 2025 common season, together with a just about seven-hour one-way commute to Valparaiso in Indiana. The crew is continuously at the move, consuming a large number of Jimmy John’s and Panda Express within the bus with nowhere to place their beverages.

Until now. On Wednesday, Tauken and his teammates aroused from sleep to a wonder — a personal jet used to be whisking them to Omaha for the mid-major program’s first commute to the Men’s College World Series. The gamers had their very own aisles to unfold out on, Tauken stated, and snacks had been doled out each and every 30 mins. Best of all, each and every seat had a cup holder.

“It was awesome,” Tauken stated. “We finally felt like people are acknowledging the work we’ve been putting in, and it feels good.”

Murray State’s unbelievable postseason run continues when it performs No. 15 UCLA on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET (ESPN) within the first spherical of the MCWS. The Racers are simply the fourth regional 4-seed to make it to Omaha because the postseason box expanded in 1999 — it is the similar of a 13-to-16-seed achieving the Elite Eight of the NCAA basketball match.

The Racers are the epitome of the have-nots of school baseball. Murray State performs in an 800-seat stadium with large holes within the outfield partitions and a washed-out outdated scoreboard, and there is a Lowe’s sitting within the backdrop.

The gamers are accountable for tarp responsibility. Some days, they have got to put the tarp down and roll it up more than one instances.

“When we take the tarp off, it’s always a river in right field,” Tauken stated. “And during the season against Southern Illinois, the outfield was basically a pool and we had to play because it was a conference series.

“So each and every step you took, the water would splash up and it used to be roughly a laugh. I imply, it used to be slightly bit unhealthy, nevertheless it used to be a laugh.”

So how have the Racers been able to go where many much larger-budgeted programs haven’t?

Baseball is all about momentum, coach Dan Skirka said. The Racers won the Missouri Valley Conference tournament — the MVC is a good league, he insists, despite its lone NCAA regional bid — and then received what they saw as a favorable draw at No. 10 Ole Miss.

They’d beaten the Rebels last year in 15 innings and played them close this season in a 10-inning loss in Oxford, Mississippi. The familiarity allowed the Racers to avoid being intimidated by the 11,000-plus Ole Miss fans and to rally after getting hammered by the Rebels 19-8 in the double-elimination regional.

Baseball, Skirka said, is also about people and relationships.

“They’re simply nice children,” he said. “They do not center of attention on what we would not have. They simply get to paintings. They like to play, they like to compete with every different, and it simply is going far.

“Just getting to work and developing and getting better. And when we got a chance to compete, they competed, and sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. But they kept developing, and obviously they’ve gotten hot here in the postseason, and they rode it.”

The Racers ended up beating Ole Miss 12-11 to advance to the supers, then took down Duke within the Durham Super Regional.

Outfielder Jonathan Hogart stood in a hallway at Charles Schwab Field on Thursday as gamers and coaches of one of the powerhouses in faculty baseball handed by way of, and in many ways it nonetheless did not appear actual. Hogart is grounded sufficient to mention that he does not take note of the trademarks at the uniforms, and assured sufficient to mention that he believes his crew can do anything else.

But he will additionally concede that if somebody advised him in January that that is the place they might be in mid-June, he don’t have believed it.

“Absolutely not,” he stated. “It’s always a dream.”

He has sat on his sofa this time of 12 months, staring at the MCWS, and idea the gamers “looked like celebrities on TV.”

“It takes a lot of luck and a lot of grit,” he stated. “And also a really talented team, which we have.”

After the Racers landed at Eppley Airfield, Skirka took them to Charles Schwab Field. Skirka stated strolling into the 24,000-seat stadium used to be an “out-of-body experience” — that is 23,200 extra seats than he is used to.

He did not say anything else after they walked in the course of the stadium Wednesday. Skirka simply sought after the gamers to peer the Murray State banner and soak the entirety in. His 9-year-old son, Keegan, used to be status beside him.

“This is pretty cool, Dad,” Keegan advised him.

Tauken walked off the sector Thursday and used to be stopped within the tunnel by way of autograph seekers. He stuck himself having a look across the stadium a couple of instances, however make no mistake — Tauken’s toes will probably be at the flooring Saturday, and significantly dry.

“They do take care of the puddles,” he stated.