How the Kennesaw State Owls made the NCAA Super Regionals

The feel good story of this year’s NCAA Baseball tournament is right here in our backyard – the Kennesaw State Owls. But, how in the world did the little ol’ KSU, who don’t evenhave an active football team, emerge as the final team left from the state of Georgia in the baseball field, as well as one of the Super Regional teams?

The Owls finished the year with a 37-21 record, and 17-9 in the Atlantic Sun conference (the same conference the Mercer Bears reside in), including the A-Sun conference tournament championship. In order to claim the conference title, they defeated East Tennessee State, Stetson (twice) and Lipscomb for the bid to Tallahassee.

Kennesaw State also played all the other major teams from the state – Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Georgia Southern and Mercer – and went a combined 8-3 against those schools (Mercer actually took two of the three games the two squads played). Not bad for an under-the-radar team.

The Owls can do it all – they hit .299 as a team, and have a staff ERA of 3.41 (which is a tad inflated with some high bullpen ERA’s) and are led by five-tool catcher Max Pentecost, who plenty of people see as a high draft prospect. Pentecost leads the team with a .423/.483/.631 line and has 35 extra base hits, nine of those being home runs and 58 RBI. Oh, and the catcher also leads the team in stolen bases. Most of the best teams in Major League Baseball are backed by a great catcher, and Pentecost and the Owls are no exception.

Kennesaw State takes the next step of their journey on Friday, as they’ll take on the Louisville Cardinals in a best of three to see who will punch their ticket to Omaha for the College World Series.