NCAA Tournament Notebook:

Cowboys face familiar foes in Stillwater Regional

Midweek games

don’t usually have as much of a grasp on a team’s season as a weekend series.

In OSU coach Josh Holliday’s mind, midweek contests are opportunities to dig deep into the pitching staff and find some hidden gems. Simultaneously they can expose flaws within it ahead of a weekend series.

On Monday morning, the Cowboys were given the No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and Washington plus two of OSU’s midweek opponents -- Oral Roberts and Dallas Baptist -- make up the rest of the four-team field in Stillwater Regional at O’Brate stadium this weekend. OSU takes on ORU in its first game of the regional Friday at 6 p.m. Competing in the Summit League and Conference USA doesn’t often bode well for a team’s RPI. In one instance this season, the Golden Eagles swept conference foe Western Illinois, yet dropped 10 spots in the RPI. So, midweek games can matter more to non-Power Five programs.

In both matchups with this year, DBU started occasional weekend starting pitcher, Zach Heaton. Oral Roberts started Joshua Caravalho, a young arm who has fluctuated in and out of the weekend rotation for the Golden Eagles.

Having Big 12 weekend series on the weekends, the Cowboys often opted for a bullpen game in the midweeks –a catalyst in OSU’s 1-3 combined regular season record against DBU and ORU.

See NCAA on page 4