College World Series: No shortage of connections between Arizona baseball, fellow CWS qualifiers

Storylines aplenty

Mason White was 8 years old when he attended each of Arizona’s NCAA Tournament games at Hi Corbett Field en route to winning its fourth national title. Four years later he watched “every pitch” of the 2016 World Series, including all of the painful moments that were those two losses to Coastal Carolina in the championship series.

It did not sit well with the 12-year-old who would go on to be one of the best players in UA history.

“To see a team like Coastal beat my Arizona was heartbreaking,” White said Sunday, after his game-winning 2-run single sent the Wildcats back to the World Series. “Part of this dream, it’s just unbelievable that my first game—I’ve never been to Omaha, fan or anything—my first game to play in Omaha would be against Coastal.

“I feel like it’s destined, like it was in the script.”

Arizona (44-19) will open the 2025 College World Series on Friday against Coastal Carolina, which hadn’t been back to Omaha since winning it all nine years ago. That opening day rematch writes its own storylines, but it’s far from the only connection between the UA and teams in the CWS field.

Of the other six teams that have qualified—Duke and Murray State play Monday afternoon for the final spot—the Wildcats have a history of sorts with each of them, including a pair of formal Pac-12 rivals:

• Arkansas: Arizona is 4-3 all-time against the Razorbacks, their last meeting coming in an early-season tournament in 2018. But they’ve met twice in Omaha, with the Wildcats winning in 2004 after the Razorbacks took their matchup in 1979.

The teams missed each other in 2023 when Arizona was sent to the Fayetteville Regional, where it went 0-2 but did not face the regional host.

• Coastal Carolina: The Chanticleers had made 14 NCAA Tournament appearances, twice making it to Supers, before finally breaking through and getting to Omaha in 2016. Like Arizona, they got there by winning all their postseason games on the road, and also like the Wildcats they had to come out of the loser’s bracket to reach the championship series.

A 3-0 win in the opener had Arizona within a game of its fifth national title, but Coastal took the second game 5-4 to force a winner-take-all contest. That final matchup was pushed back an extra day because weather and the UA had the tying run at third base in the 9^th but came up just short.

• Louisville: The Cardinals are back in Omaha for the sixth time overall and first since 2019. The last trip was one of four in a 7-year span immediately after Louisville trekked to Tucson for a regional in 2012 and ran into the buzzsaw that was Arizona that season.

The UA blitzed Louisville 16-4 and 16-3 at Hi Corbett Field during its 10-0 postseason run to claim its fourth championship.

The schools’ only other meeting came in February, during the opening weekend of the season at a tournament in Arlington, Texas. White hit a solo home run in the 1^st inning of that game and it would be Arizona’s only hit in a 13-1 loss that capped an 0-3 start to 2025.

• LSU: Can you really hate a team if you’ve never played them? You can if they’re coached by the guy who led your squad to its last trip to Omaha and then almost as soon as that run ended bolted for his current gig.

The Wildcats and Tigers have never met in baseball but that won’t matter if Arizona and LSU clash in Omaha, which can only happen in the championship series since they’re on opposite sides of the bracket. Former UA coach Jay Johnson has his team in the CWS for the second time in four seasons, the other coming in 2023 when LSU won it all.

That ‘23 team included a couple ex-Wildcats who followed Johnson to Baton Rouge, as did Mac Bingham in 2024. They’re gone, but the coach that UA fans will never forgive for bailing on them—think Jedd Fisch before Jedd Fisch—is still around the boo.

• Oregon State: When the Pac-12 broke up after last season, most schools ended up in another power conference. The Beavers were one of the exceptions, with most of their sports joining the West Coast Conference in most sports, but their baseball program opted to play an independent schedule in 2025.

That paid off in the form of hosting a regional and Super Regional en route to OSU’s eight CWS appearance and first since 2018.

Arizona and OSU played dozens of great games against each other during their time as conference foes, including two of the last meetings. In 2023 the Wildcats walked off the Beavers in a Pac-12 Tournament game to keep alive their push to sneak into the NCAA tourney, and last May they won the final Pac-12 regular season title by beating OSU in dramatic fashion:

• UCLA: The Bruins tied for last place in the Pac-12 in 2024, but the move to the Big Ten Conference paid off big time. UCLA got to host a regional for the first time since 2019 and, thanks to UTSA taking the Austin Regional over No. 2 Texas, also got to host Supers.

UCLA’s first CWS appearance since 2013, when it won its lone national title, comes a year removed from a very bad season that included a very forgetful weekend in Tucson. Arizona walked off the Bruins in all three games on Easter Weekend, the first on an extra-inning homer by Brendan Summerhill and the last on an extra-inning homer by White.

Those walkoffs were at the start of an 11-game conference win streak that propelled Arizona to the final Pac-12 regular season title.