College Station Regional Breakdown
Texas A&M won the right to host one of the 16 regionals, but it is one of three teams with at-large bids in the 2012 NCAA tournament. Two conference co-champions, the Big 12’s runner-up and the fourth-place team in a deep SEC West are among the schools here at College Station, with Texas A&M looking to earn its second straight super-regional bid. Texas A&M (42-16), the second-place team in the Big 12, made the College World Series field a year ago but lost to South Carolina and California. The Aggies have five hitters with averages above .300, led by Tyler Naquin (.384-3-46). Jacob House (.308-8-55) brings some power to the team, but Texas A&M made its presence known by its speedy running game. Some of the football team’s prowess on the field has rubbed off on the baseball team with seven players in double-digit steals. Naquin and Krey Bratsen have 21 steals apiece and Mikey Reynolds has 19 stolen bases. If Texas A&M can harness some of that running energy during regionals, it should be an effortless bid to get to super-regionals and another CWS trip shouldn’t be far behind.
The Aggies’ competition isn’t a pushover by any stretch. TCU (36-19), which tied for the Mountain West championship with New Mexico, is here, and the Horned Frogs boast the sixth-best earned run average (2.79) in the country. With Preston Morrison (9-1, 1.73), Stefan Crichton (8-2, 3.56) and Andrew Mitchell (5-3, 3.62) leading the way, TCU should be deadly in the pitching area. TCU also made the College World Series in 2010, falling to UCLA, and it lost to Oral Roberts in the 2011 regional round. Mississippi (35-24) hasn’t been to a super-regional since 2009 and it missed the entire tournament last year. Its .301 batting average, ranked 25th in the nation, should help the team do better this time around and a difficult SEC schedule may have prepped the team better come tournament time. Dayton (31-28) tied for the Atlantic 10 title behind the batting of Bobby Glover (.331-9-41) and the Flyers are making their first tournament appearance in recent years.
