Kentucky baseball embarks on a difficult task as a first-time participant in the College World Series on Saturday. Omaha hasn’t been so kind to first-timers in the recent past. 

The Wildcats aim to be an exception.

“It feels like we’ve really kicked the door down now,” said UK outfielder Nolan McCarthy after the Super Regional series-clinching win against Oregon State on Sunday. “We have unfinished business. It feels amazing to be the first ones.”

Since 2000, 17 schools did not advance to the finals in their first appearance in Omaha, including seven teams that promptly dropped their first two games and were eliminated.

(In Louisville’s inaugural appearance in 2007, it lost to No. 2 seed Rice, beat Mississippi State in an elimination game, then was knocked out of the CWS by No. 3 seed North Carolina.) 

TCU was the only notable team among those 17, winning three games in 2010 and finishing just shy of the finals losing an elimination game to UCLA.

And then there was Coastal Carolina. 

The Chanticleers made it 18 teams since 2000 who reached the CWS for the first time. They made good on their first and only appearance in Omaha in 2016 by taking down Arizona to win the national title.

The Cats could duplicate Coastal’s improbable run as a newcomer to the biggest stage in college baseball, but it wouldn’t be considered much of a surprise.

Kentucky earned its No. 2 national seed. 

Most first-time teams pulled off some kind of upset to get to Omaha. Of the previous teams to make the CWS for the first time this century, only Nebraska (8) in 2001 and Vanderbilt (6) and Tulane (5) in 2011 were national seeds.

While the Cats haven’t been a perennial baseball power, they have played like it this season. So the allure of just getting there, which leads to some teams undoing, won’t be a factor for the Cats.

This is a veteran team.

Redshirt sophomore James McCoy is the youngest player in terms of eligibility who is a regular starter. And everyone else who is a mainstay in the lineup has at least three years of experience. 

The same goes for its starting rotation of pitchers. Trey Pooser and Dominic Niman are both graduate students. And Mason Moore is a junior.

The Cats embody the “get old, stay old” mantra shared by many coaches in college sports.  

UK won the Southeastern Conference regular-season title in a year the league sent a record 11 teams into the NCAA Tournament and placed four teams in the CWS along with the Atlantic Coast Conference. In winning a school-record 22 league games, UK won a program-record 11 of those on the road. 

None of this was a surprise in Lexington. The Cats simply lived up to the expectations they set for themselves.

Pitcher Cameron O’Brien, a graduate transfer from Campbell, said during his recruitment coach Nick Mingione told him they could “do something that’s never been done.”

“So to sit here and be doing something that’s never been done before is pretty awesome,” O’Brien said. “And we’re definitely not done yet.”

Kentucky’s pitching staff only ranks fifth in earned run average among the eight teams competing in Omaha. Its overall hitting doesn’t jump out either, as its .287 batting average ranks seventh, above only Florida of remaining teams.

But what the Cats do have, and Mingione is banking on, is a group that pushes each other to be great. The team ranks in the top 25 nationally in doubles, total stolen bases, sacrifice bunts, hits allowed and fielding percentage.

“The strength of our team is our team,” he said. 

Kentucky accomplished a lot of firsts this season, be it “first-ever” or “first in a long time,” just to get to Omaha. The Cats have one more first to check off the list.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Labor inspectors have issued nearly $13,750 in fines to masonry contractor Schnell Contractors after one of its workers fell to his death in October 2023 on a job site.

Mark Gibson, 53, was working on the facade at the former Brown Forman bottling plant when he fell. Inspectors cited numerous issues related to the scaffolding.

The inspection summary said Gibson was replacing some planks on the scaffold he was working on when he fell through the opening, falling 63 feet to his death. He was not wearing a safety harness to protect him from falling.

The labor inspection cited five violations of workplace rules surrounding scaffolds.

Inspectors found the platform wasn’t long enough at its end, there wasn’t a safe way to access the scaffold, and there wasn’t a daily inspection of the scaffold to determine if it was safe.

Gibson wasn’t protected by a safety harness or any sort of guardrail to prevent a fall.

There was no record of any training on fall protection.

Schnell Contractors has contested the citations. That could potentially result in reduced fines if they’re successful.

Company executives did not return a phone call after WAVE left a message.

Copyright 2024 WAVE. All rights reserved.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Kentucky will travel to Clemson, for the second installment of the SEC/ACC Challenge on Dec. 3 at Littlejohn Coliseum the leagues announced Wednesday. A TV designation and tip time will be announced at a later date.

UK owns an all-time mark of 12-4 against Clemson, but the two teams have not met since Nov. 29, 1997. The Wildcats claimed a 76-61 win over the Tigers as part of the Premier Classic in Phoenix during its 1998 National Championship season during the last edition of the series. With the 2024-25 matchup set, Kentucky will renew a series that was prominent during its early stages as a program. UK has played at Clemson four times, leading the series 3-1, but has not traveled to South Carolina since the 1933-34 season.

Last year the Wildcats knocked off No. 8 Miami inside of Rupp Arena by a 95-73 score in the opening year of the challenge. The Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference tied with both leagues winning seven matchups in the 14-game event. With both conferences expanding in 2024-25, the event will increase to 16 games.

Kentucky head coach Mark Pope’s inaugural schedule continues to take shape with the announcement of the road date at Clemson. In May, the SEC unveiled home and away designations for its 18-game slate.

The Wildcats will also continue their appearance in the Champions Classic on Nov. 12 with a matchup against Duke in Atlanta at State Farm Arena. A tip time will be released at a later date.

Pope and his staff have put together a dynamic roster for the 2024-25 season that features a mix of six fifth-year players, one senior, one junior, one sophomore and three freshmen.

UK’s veterans have combined to play in 845 collegiate games and have scored nearly 8,000 career points. Ansley Almonor, Lamont Butler, Andrew Carr and Amari Williams are all 1,000-point scorers. The group has also drained 1,033 career 3-pointers at a 37.0% rate.

Butler and Williams were named their league’s defensive player of the year, while Koby Brea and Jaxson Robinson have been tabbed a conference’s sixth man of the year in their career and Almonor was a most improved selection. Brandon Garrison is a former McDonald’s All-American. Kerr Kriisa has played in 99 career games and has made 238 3-pointers, while Otega Oweh has seen action in 60 games and was Oklahoma’s second-leading scorer a season ago.

Kentucky’s freshmen group includes Travis Perry and Trent Noah from the state of Kentucky and Collin Chandler, a former top-35 signee in the class of 2022. Perry is the state’s all-time leading scorer, while Noah broke the Sweet 16 state record for most 3-pointers drained in a single run with 19 this season.

Copyright 2024 WYMT. All rights reserved.