OMAHA -- Summit League regular season and tournament champion Oral Roberts will play in the opening game of the 2023 Men's College World Series Friday when the Golden Eagles take on TCU at 1 p.m. CT at Charles Schwab Field. ORU became the first team in League history to qualify for the final stage of the NCAA Baseball Tournament after taking two of three from Oregon at the Eugene Super Regional that the Ducks hosted last weekend.

The dual Summit League titles marked the 20th time that the ORU program won both the regular season and tournament crowns in the same season since 1999.

The Horned Frogs will be a famililar foe for ORU as those two programs have met 45 times with the Golden Eagles holding a 26-19 edge in the all-time series and a 3-3 mark in NCAA postseason play. TCU did get the best of ORU a season ago, posting a 3-1 victory to eliminate the Golden Eagles from the 2022 College Station Regional. The teams split a pair of matchups in 2011 at the Fort Worth Regional, while TCU got the upperhand in a 2016 Fort Worth Regional tilt.

ORU beat TCU twice at the 2014 Austin Regional.

This is the furthest a Summit League team has advanced in baseball posteason play.

BY THE NUMBERS: ORAL ROBERTS | THE SUMMIT LEAGUE
1 | With its game three win over Oregon in the Eugene Super Regional, Oral Roberts became the first Summit League team to advance to the Men’s College World Series.
 
8 | With ORU’s five NCAA Baseball Tournament wins so far, Summit League teams have now won eight NCAA postseason games in 2022-23 , breaking the single-season mark of seven set during the 2008-09 and 1997-98 academic years. The Denver men’s soccer team, South Dakota volleyball team and South Dakota State women’s basketball team each won an NCAA Tournament game this year.

15 | Golden Eagle closer Cade Denton shares the DI lead with 15 saves on the season after registering one in each game of the Stillwater Regional. Those 15 saves are also tied for a Summit League single-season record (Jason Markert, ORU; 2000).

21 | ORU had its Summit League-record 21-game winning streak snapped in game one of the Eugene Super Regional, which was the longest by any DI team this season. The Golden Eagles hit .340 as a team, held a team ERA of 3.17 and only made 12 errors in 737 chances (.984) during that record-breaking stretch.

47 | ORU centerfielder Jonah Cox hit safely in each game of the Eugene Super Regional to extend his hitting streak to 47 games, which is tied for the third longest in Division I history with Wichita State’s Phil Stephenson (1981). Oklahoma State’s Robin Ventura brough a 56-game hitting streak to Omaha in 1987 and pushed that to the current record of 58 consecutive before going hitless in the Cowboys’ third game against Stanford.

51 | ORU’s game three win over the Ducks was also the 51st win of the season for the Golden Eagles, who established a new Summit League single-season and program record for victories in a season. The 2004 ORU squad held the previous mark of 50. 

110 | Cox needs one more hit to tie the Summit League single-season record for hits, which is currently held by former South Dakota State Jackrabbit Billy Stitz at 111 (2010).

.984 | ORU’s defense has committed just two errors in 215 chances during six NCAA Tournament games, leaving the Golden Eagles as the top ranked defensive team in DI with a .984 clip entering play in Omaha. The .984 clip is currently the same as the Omaha Mavericks’ single-season League record mark that club set in 2019 when it won the regular season and tournament titles.

Regional No. 4 seeds Advancing To The Men’s College World Series
2023 | Oral Roberts (first Summit League team to make the MCWS)
2012 | Stony Brook (0-2; eliminated after two games)
2008 | Fresno State (5-2; won national championship)

TEAM TRACKER
(14/NR) ORAL ROBERTS (51-12, 23-1 SL) | @ORUBaseball
Next Up: vs. TCU (6/16, 1 p.m. CT on ESPN)
Eugene Super Regional: at Oregon (L, 9-8; W, 8-7; W, 11-6)
Stillwater Regional: at No. 11 Oklahoma State (W, 6-4); vs. Washington (W, 15-12); vs. Dallas Baptist (W, 6-5) 
This marks the second time in League history that a Summit team has advanced to the final NCAA stage of its respective sport as ORU joins the 2016 Denver men’s soccer team with that distinction ... The Pioneers played in the College Cup semifinals that season, falling to Wake Forest ... ORU head coach Ryan Folmar is the only skipper in DI baseball that won Conference Coach of the Year honors (sixth time), a regular season title, a conference tournamen title, a NCAA Regional and a NCAA Super Regional this season ... The Golden Eagles are 8-1 during a postseason run that has seen them win the Summit League Tournament, Stillwater Regional and Eugene Super Regional and headed to Men’s College World Series for the first time since 1978 ... During those nine games, the team is batting .355 with three players all sporting batting averages above .400 ... That trio includes Justin Quinn (19-for-43; 442), Jake McMurray (17-for-41; .415) and Mac McCroskey (16-for-39; .410) ... Quinn and Jonah Cox share the postseason team lead with 12 RBI ... Cox brings a 47-game hitting streak into Omaha, while Quinn has hit safely in his last 16 games ... Oregon and Oral Roberts traded walk-off wins in the opening two games of the Eugene Super Regional before the Golden Eagles claimed the series and punched their ticket to the MCWS with an 11-6 win in game three ... McMurray went 4-for-5 with a pair of RBI and three runs in the series finale ... The Golden Eagles were back in a Super Regional for the first time since 2006 when Clemson defeated them 11-8 and 6-5 to advance to the Men’s College World Series ... That appearance was also the only other time a Summit League team had advanced that far in the NCAA Baseball Tournament since Super Regionals were added in 1999 ... ORU made the Eugene Super Regional by defeating No. 11 national seed Oklahoma State for the third time this season in the opening game of the Stillwater Regional 6-4, then rallying from an 8-0 deficit to beat third-seeded Washington 15-12 before finishing off a three-game sweep with a 6-5 win over a Dallas Baptist team that had swept the Golden Eagles during the regular season ... All-American reliever Cade Denton saved all three contests for ORU and was named the Stillwater Regional Most Outstanding Player ... Denton has struck out 18 batters in 10.2 innings of work during seven postseason appearances and picked up a win in game two of the Super Regional following 3.1 innings of work ... The Golden Eagles captured the program’s 21st Summit League Tournament title to advance to their 30th NCAA Tournament ... ORU has won 21 of the 23 Summit League Tournaments it has appeared in, including a run of 15 straight from 1998-2012 ... The 2023 title was the second consecutive for the Golden Eagles, who won the regular season title as well with a record of 23-1 ...  This marked the 20th time that ORU won both the Summit League regular season and tournament titles in the same season since 1999 ... The Golden Eagles are now 72-7 all-time in Summit League Tournament contests ... ORU has won 41 of its last 45 games and outscored opponents 201-74 during a 21-game winning streak (April 23-June 9), which was the longest ever by a Summit League team and longest by a DI team this season ... The previous best streak was 18 consecutive wins by the 1989 Missouri State Bears.

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