Murray State is the ultimate College World Series Cinderella

There have been some unlikely participants who have crashed college baseball's biggest stage, but none quite like the Racers

On Friday, the 2025 College World Series will begin, with eight college baseball teams descending on Omaha, Neb. for the chance to compete for a national championship under the brightest lights their sport has to offer.

This year’s iteration of college baseball’s preeminent event comes with some much-needed variety. After the SEC and ACC accounted for the entirety of the eight-team field last season, with each league sending four teams, seven different conferences have a representative. Those teams aren’t just from the southeast, either, with two west coast schools and one southwestern school making it. None of this year’s eight qualifiers competed in the CWS last year, the first time that’s happened since 1957.

For those who appreciate the newcomers but crave the most powerful program on the biggest stage, don’t worry. Five of the eight CWS teams have won the national championship since 2012, including two programs that have won three titles apiece this century.

Tucked within those numbers are compelling stories.

Arkansas, the highest-ranked team remaining in the NCAA Tournament, is looking for its first national title and seeking to shed its reputation as a perpetual bridesmaid, with 13 CWS trips but no championships. Oregon State, one of the aforementioned three-time winners, is looking to add a fourth title to its name at the end of a season in which it competed as an independent following the dissolution of what had been the Pac-12. Coastal Carolina isn’t an underdog in a technical sense – with a CWS championship in the past decade, a No. 13 national seed this year and a Division I-best 23-game win streak – but that doesn’t make the Chanticleers any less likeable, from their small-conference affiliation to their unapologetic Myrtle Beach vibe to their first-year coach who unflinchingly spoke for much of the college baseball world when he called Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan an asshole (albeit not in those exact words).

In a CWS featuring some unlikely and endearing entrants, there’s no question about who the biggest Cinderella is.

Murray State is one of three unranked teams to have made it to the CWS, but their inclusion in the event is by far the most improbable. After winning the Missouri Valley tournament, the Racers earned a No. 4 seed in their four-team region. In a tournament with 64 teams split into 16 four-team pods, a No. 4 seed is equivalent to a team somewhere between a No. 13 seed and a No. 16 seed in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. And with the CWS being college baseball’s equivalent of the Final Four, even a casual follower of the sport can understand what Murray State has accomplished by getting to this point.

Geographically speaking, the Racers are the second-closest team in the field to Omaha, with only Arkansas closer. Their journey to get there, though, was undeniably the longest.

Murray State’s far from a baseball powerhouse

By making the CWS, the Racers have made the most of what have been infrequent NCAA tournament visits.

Until this year, Murray State hadn’t qualified for the 64-team field since 2003. Over the course of its 94-year baseball history, the Racers have made the NCAA tournament only four times. This year is just their second berth since 1979. Prior to this season, they had gone 2-6 in the NCAA Tournament.

Though coach Dan Skirka has led Murray State to a winning record in six of his seven seasons on the job, the program has spent much of the 21st century languishing. In 16 of the 17 seasons before Skirka came aboard, from 2002-18, the Racers failed to finish above .500. As recently as 10 years ago, they went 16-40, losing 22 of their final 24 games. Until this year, they hadn’t won their conference’s regular-season championship since 1991.

Their 42 wins so far this season are a program record, marking only the second time ever that Murray State has won at least 40 games, which is a baseline expectation at many baseball powerhouses.

The school itself is an underdog

Athletically speaking, Murray State’s not exactly an unknown.