Last season, the Cinderella run to Super Regionals as the No. 3 seed was just the start of what the Miami Hurricanes baseball program could return to under J.D. Arteaga.

This season, the Canes finished with a 38-18 record and in fifth place in the conference, while playing like a two seed all season, ranking as high as No. 17 in the country before falling out and remaining in the low 20s to high 30s in their RPI rankings.

However, the Canes’ goals have always been to get to Omaha, and now they know where their journey begins as they look to make that dream a reality. Moreover, that reality can quickly change overnight.

Arteaga highlighted this after the Canes’ loss to eventual ACC Baseball Championship winners Georgia Tech. It’s the survive-and-advance season.

“It’s not another chance tomorrow,” Arteaga said. “So that’s something we talked about coming into this is understanding what a loss at this point of the season means. It’s kind of a practice run this week. If we lose we’re out of the tournament but we got a chance to dress out and compete next weekend. Next weekend we lose and then season’s over and for some guys their careers are over. So a learning lesson that we can’t take anything for granted. We’ve got to show up, we’ve got to be ready to go for nine innings every game.”

The Hurricanes land in the Gainesville Regional. They have a chance to redeem themselves after the series loss early in the season, while also having a chance of making it out and having a strong Super Regional hosting chance in the 8th seed pod.

This story will be updated with game dates and times once the NCAA bracket is fully revealed on Monday morning.

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Lionel Messi headed into the World Cup break a bit earlier than planned, and now it’ll be Argentina waiting to see if there’s an injury to worry about.

Messi, who almost never gets subbed out of matches, left in the 73rd minute, meaning he was long gone before Luis Suárez’s third goal of the night lifted the defending MLS champions past the last-place Philadelphia Union 6-4 on Sunday night.

Messi had two assists and Germán Berterame scored twice during a record-setting first half for Inter Miami. But Messi basically took himself out of play in the 71st minute and reached toward his left hamstring at least once, then didn’t even venture toward the Inter Miami bench when he could be subbed out.

Messi was replaced by Mateo Silvetti, then left immediately through the tunnel connecting the field with the team’s locker room. Messi was walking under his own power, albeit slowly, and without any team medical personnel with him.

Rodrigo De Paul, on his birthday, scored in stoppage time to seal the win for Inter Miami.

Heavy rain began falling early in the second half, causing some players to seem to slip on the turf. It wasn’t clear if Messi’s departure was precautionary or not, and it didn’t seem like he took any major missteps during the worst of the rain.

Messi has said in the past that he would only play in the World Cup if healthy. Argentina starts group stage play on June 16.

Milan Iloski had a first-half hat trick — including two penalty kicks — and Bruno Damiani also scored for Union, which was up 2-0 only 10 minutes into the match. That start set the stage for the teams to be tied at 4-4 at the half.

The eight goals by halftime was an MLS record, the league said.

Messi has already appeared in five World Cups, winning the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player twice — first in 2014, then again in 2022 when he led Argentina to the title. That award has been given out only since 1982, but he is the lone player to win it twice.

Argentina is in Group J for the World Cup and its group stage matches are: Algeria, at Kansas City, on June 16; Austria, at Arlington, Texas, on June 22; and Jordan, back in Arlington, on June 27.

If Argentina wins that group — and the defending champions would be heavily favored to do so — then Messi would play a Round of 32 match in Miami Gardens on July 3. The only other way for Messi to play in South Florida during the tournament would be if Argentina is in the third-place match on July 18.

Of course, all that is contingent on whether Messi plays. And that would now seem to be in at least some question.

Inter Miami (9-2-4, 31 points) enters the break second in the Eastern Conference, two points behind Nashville (10-1-3, 33 points). Inter Miami is also fourth in the Supporters’ Shield standings — a trophy that Philadelphia won last season.

The Union won’t be winning that this season. Not even close.

They’re at the bottom of the league, a stunning first-to-worst collapse and head into the break with seven points — at 1-10-4.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this recap.