Historic season for USC Upstate baseball ends in Tuscaloosa Regional
· Yahoo Sports
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A historic season has come to an end for USC Upstate baseball.
The Spartans made it to Sunday, May 31, of the NCAA Tuscaloosa Regional, where they were eliminated in a 12-1 loss to 2-seed Oklahoma State — the same team they upset to open up the regional and clinch Upstate’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win.
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Prior to securing the No. 3 seed in regionals, Upstate also won its second straight Big South Tournament championship. Thirty-four victories also made 2026 one of the program’s winningest seasons yet.
“We lost nine straight in April, and I don't know how many people know that,” Spartans coach Kane Sweeney said after the loss. “But to go from losing nine straight games to where we finished this year, at one point rattling off 14 of 16, just shows the resiliency of this group, the fight that we have in our program.”
Sweeney praised his group of seniors and lamented how much he would miss them.
“They mean a lot to me,” Sweeney continued. “They stayed here with me through the coaching change a couple years ago.”
The 11 seniors included Wylie Waters, Jake Armsey, Alex Ritzer, Brady Small, Tyler LeJeune, Spencer Warfield, Preston Lucas, Gage Griggs, Johnny Sweeney, Reece Hemmerling and Juan Reyes.
“It's a really special group, and the only thing that I'm disappointed in is that I don't get another day to coach them,” Sweeney concluded.
Emilee Smarr covers Alabama basketball and Crimson Tide athletics for The Tuscaloosa News. She can be reached via email at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: USC Upstate baseball historic season ends in NCAA Tournament regionals