The NCAA Baseball Tournament has been known to produce its fair share of upsets over the years.
On Monday, the Evansville Purple Aces continued their Cinderella run, beating East Carolina 6-5 in the finale of the Greenville Regional to advance to the upcoming Super Regionals.
The Purple Aces (37-24), who had to win the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament to even reach the NCAA Tournament, held off the Pirates, who were picked as the 16th and final national seed in the event.
Evansville, who was seeded fourth out four teams in the Greenville Regional, started off by beating East Carolina 4-1 last Friday. The Purple Aces then took down VCU 17-11 to advance to the championship round.
East Carolina forced a winner-take-all matchup by beating Evansville 19-6 on Sunday night, but the Purple Aces were up for the challenge today, prevailing behind four innings of shutout relief by sophomore Max Hansmann and some clutch hitting by outfielder Mark Shallenberger (2-for-4, three RBI) and designated hitter Kip Fougerosse (1-for-3, two RBI).
Evansville, which was making just the sixth NCAA Tournament appearance in program history, is now the fourth No. 4 seed to advance out of a regional to the Super Regionals.
“This means a significant amount to the University of Evansville, to our athletic department and to our city,” UE coach Wes Carroll said postgame. “I couldn’t be more proud to be an Ace right now. We went out and we earned that thing today. We delivered some big barrels when we needed to.”
Evansville will now take on top-ranked Tennessee in the Super Regional.