Entering the Pac-12 Tournament as the No. 9 seed, Washington is the lowest seeded team in the entire field as the three pools of three teams begin action on Tuesday. But head coach Jason Kelly has no doubts in his squad.
While the Huskies might not have performed up to their top level all season long, they did pick off series wins against the likes of Texas and top seed in the Pac-12, Arizona, along the way. Kelly is bullish on his squad’s ability to compete with the top teams.
“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” Kelly said on the Pac-12 Network broadcast during the 3rd inning. “We’ve lost a number of games, I think we’ve been walked off six times. We’ve been right there and we struggled so bad offensively to get going at the beginning of the year, kind of put us in a little bit of hole and we started to get ourselves out. So we’re capable of playing well, we’re capable of beating any one in this conference on any day and I think anybody is capable of beating anybody. You’ve seen a little bit of that today. So if we can play the way we’re capable of, then we have as good of a chance to win as anybody.”
However, unfortunately for Kelly and his Washington squad, they gave up three runs to Cal across the 3rd and 4th innings, creating a hole to dig out of.
And a year removed from making the 2023 NCAA tournament in Kelly’s first year as the head coach, Kelly had plenty of praise for his senior group for the foundation they’ve helped lay out.
“For me to come in last year, never have been a head coach before and you don’t know how that’s going to go and you don’t know how the players are going to react to you and especially on the pitching end with those two guys,” Kelly said. “And they welcomed us all in with open arms, and especially on the pitching end. [Calvin] Kirchoff had an injury thing last year, so he didn’t get to pitch as much as he wanted to last year so those guys have been great. They’ve set the tone for our program and hopefully are going to set the tone for groups coming in. They’ve done a really good job with our guys. We have a young pitching staff this year, those guys have been great leaders and we’re really going to miss them.”
2024 Pac-12 Baseball Tournament Bracket, Schedule
All times PST.
POOL A: No. 1 Arizona, No. 6 Cal, No. 9 Washington
POOL B: No. 5 Arizona State, No. 2 Oregon State, No. 8 Stanford
POOL C: No. 3 Oregon, No. 4 USC, No. 7 Utah
Tuesday May 21
Stanford vs. Arizona State | Stanford wins, 8-7
Utah vs. USC | 2:30 p.m.
Washington vs. Cal | 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday May 22
Oregon State vs. Stanford | 10:00 a.m.
Oregon vs. Utah | 2:30 p.m.
Arizona vs. Washington | 7:00 p.m.
Thursday May 23
Arizona State vs. Oregon State | 10:00 a.m.
USC vs. Oregon | 2:30 p.m.
Cal vs. Arizona | 7:00 p.m.
Following pool play, the survivors will duke it out in the semifinals Friday and then the championship game on Saturday evening. The Pac-12 website notes that, ideally, the highest seeded team will face the lowest seeded team in one semifinal, with the other two closer-seeded squads facing each other.
However, since two teams from the same pool cannot meet in the semifinal round, they’d be split up even if they were the highest and lowest seed. With all of that in mind, here’s what that schedule looks like for the final rounds:
Friday May 24
Semifinal 1 | 2:30 p.m.
Semifinal 2 | 7:00 p.m.
Saturday May 25
Championship game | 7:00 p.m.
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