Washington Set to Open NCAA Stillwater Regional vs. Dallas Baptist

STILLWATER, Okla. – Earning its 12th NCAA Tournament bid in program history, Washington opens the NCAA Stillwater Regional on Friday, taking on Dallas Baptist at 10 a.m. PT at O'Brate Stadium.
 
Friday's affair will be available for streaming on ESPN+. A link to live stats is available on the GoHuskies.com schedule page and HuskyStats.com.

DAWG BITES
• Washington is also joined in the regional by hosts Oklahoma State and four seed Oral Roberts.
• Washington is coming off of a Semifinal appearance in the Pac-12 Tournament.
• The Huskies defeated USC 8-3 in pool play to advance to the semifinals. The victory over the Trojans was UW's first-ever Pac-12 Tournament win.
• Stu Flesland III picked up his seventh win of the season in the game, the most wins by a Husky hurler since Stevie Emanuels' eight in 2018.
• Simpson is currently riding a 16-game hitting streak, the longest streak of the season by a Husky. AJ Guerrero is in the midst of an 11-game hitting streak.
• Coby Morales has reached base in 32 consecutive games.

POSTSEASON DAWGS
Washington is making its 12th appearance in the NCAA Tournament, its first since 2018 and its sixth regional appearance under the current format. The Huskies own a 27-23 record all-time in the postseason, advancing past the regional round once in 2018. Every player on Washington's roster will be competing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time.

SERIES HISTORY VS. DALLAS BAPTIST
The Huskies have met up with the Patriots of Dallas Baptist, a long-time force in college baseball, six times previously, though it's been more than a decade. Washington went into Dallas and swept a three-game set from DBU in 2010. However, the Patriots made the return trip to Seattle the following year and came out the victors, taking two of three games on Montlake.

SERIES HISTORY VS. OKLAHOMA STATE
The Huskies have faced off with host Oklahoma State five times previously, last taking on the Cowboys in 2015, a 12-2 loss at the Pac-12/Big 12 Tournament in Mesa, Arizona. Washington will be making its first trip to Stillwater since 2011, when the Cowboys earned a 4-2 win in 11 innings. UW also visited Stillwater in 1996, dropping 2-of-3 games to OSU on its home field.

SERIES HISTORY VS. ORAL ROBERTS
Washington and Oral Roberts have squared off in postseason play previously, with U Dub earning a 13-6 win over the Golden Eagles in College Station, Texas, in the 1998 Central Regional. The Huskies are 0-2 in the only two regular season matchups between the two sides, dropping single games to ORU in 1980 and 1982.

ALL-PAC-12 DAWGS
The Pac-12 announced its postseason awards following the conclusion of the regular season, with four Huskies earning an All-Pac-12 nod. Cam Clayton and Stu Flesland III earned their first all-conference honor, while Will Simpson and Johnny Tincher repeated after also earning All-Pac-12 laurels in 2022. The four honorees are the most for Washington since 2018. UW also had five players land on the honorable mention team, including Josh Emanuels, AJ Guerrero, Kiefer Lord, Case Matter and Coby Morales.

KEEP 'EM COMING SKIP!
In his first season at the helm of the Husky program, Jason Kelly's Dawgs have racked up 34 wins, the second most wins by a first year head coach in program history. Kelly is six victories shy of the 39 wins posted by Ken Knutsen in his first campaign in 1993. Kelly is the first coach in the history of Washington baseball to lead the Dawgs to the NCAA Tournament in his first season.

HEATING BACK UP
Over the last five games, true freshman Sam DeCarlo leads the Huskies with a .429 batting average (6-for-14), also leading Washington over those five games with a .529 on-base percentage. The run of form comes on the heels of DeCarlo recording just three hits over 26 at-bats in the previous 10 games, a .115 average.

LET STU COOK
Stu Flesland III has picked up the win in three straight starts. The lefty is 7-2 on the season, the most wins by a Husky since 2018 when Stevie Emanuels registered eight. Flesland has allowed two or fewer runs in four straight starts and 10-of-15 starts in 2023.

HEATING UP
Hitting his stride at the right time, Michael Snyder spearheaded the Washington offense over the last five games of the regular season. The walk on third baseman led the team with a .556 batting average over those five games, registering three doubles and three home runs while posting 12 RBIs and 10 runs scored, also team-highs.

Snyder has done his best work against Pac-12 opposition. Eight of the redshirt-junior's 10 home runs have come in Pac-12 play, while 29 of his 44 RBIs have been against Pac-12 opponents.

LIKE CLOCKWORK
Coby Morales has reached base in 32 consecutive games, the longest streak at UW since MJ Hubbs reached in 39 straight in 2017.

HE'S GOING STREAKING
Will Simpson is riding a 16-game hitting streak, recording multiple base hits in 10 of those 16 games. It is the longest streak of the season by a Husky, eclipsing the 12-game streaks by Cam Clayton and AJ Guerrero. It is the longest streak since Brandon Berry also reached in 16 straight games in 2015.

STRIKE EARLY
The Huskies have gotten off to strong starts to games, scoring 52 runs in the first inning and 46 in the second. Washington has outscored its opponents 98-52 in the first two innings of games.

KEEPING IT CLEAN
Washington continues to boast one of the Pac-12's top defenses. The Huskies rank third in the conference with a .976 fielding percentage.

STARTING STRONG
The Dawgs have gotten off to fast starts to innings, having the leadoff hitter to a frame reach 43.9 percent of the time. 100 of the 188 leadoff baserunners have come around to score.

ON THE CLOCK
33 of Washington's games this season have been completed in under three hours, including six games completed in under two and a half hours.

THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
Laying down a perfect bunt in the 13th inning Friday night at Stanford, McKay Barney became the first Husky to record a sacrifice bunt this season. The Huskies were the second-to-last team in the nation to lay down a sacrifice bunt, with Texas A&M laying down its first the following day.

STOCK UP
Washington has four players ranked in D1Baseball's most recent position rankings.

UW in D1Baseball's Updated Position Rankings
Kiefer Lord - Starting Pitcher - No. 32
Josh Emanuels - Relief Pitcher - No. 42
Johnny Tincher - Catcher - No. 39
Cam Clayton - Shortstop - No. 22

LORD ALMIGHTY
Washington right-hander Kiefer Lord is one of three players to earn multiple weekly Pac-12 honors this season, joining Oregon's Jace Stoffal and Stanford's Alberto Rios.

Lord twirled eight shutout innings in UW's 9-0 victory at No. 9 Stanford to earn the Week 10 award, matching his season-high with 10 strikeouts. The eight innings were tied for the most in an outing in his career and two more than any other game this season. Lord retired the final 16 Cardinal batters he faced. The NorCal native was also named a Player of the Week by Collegiate Baseball.

Throwing six perfect innings with 10 strikeouts against Northern Colorado, Kiefer Lord was named the Week 3 Perfect Game National Pitcher of the Week and Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week. The righty hurler became the first Husky to earn a national pitching award since Joe DeMers in 2018 and the first Husky pitcher to earn a Pac-12 weekly award since Josh Burgmann in 2019.

THAT'S OFFENSIVE
The Dawgs put up astonishing numbers during their four-game series with Northern Colorado. Most notably was the school-record 32 runs scored in the series opener. Those 32 runs are the sixth most scored by one team in an NCAA Division I game this season. The Huskies outscored the Bears 57-12 for the series, batting .388 as a team with 15 doubles, six home runs, 51 RBIs, 26 walks, 16 HBPs and a .513 team on-base percentage.

THE JUCO JUMP
Washington has 10 junior college products on its roster. Four players come from the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system, with four California Community College system products and two players from Arizona's Maricopa County Community College District.

HOMEGROWN DAWGS
Nearly half of the Husky roster, 19 of 39 players overall, are homegrown talents from the state of Washington. Of those 19 local products, 16 hail from the greater Seattle Metropolitan area. Below is a breakdown of the counties UW's Washington natives call home.

UW Washington Natives by County
King County - 14
Clark County - 2
Pierce County - 1
Snohomish County - 1
Spokane County - 1

RUN IT BACK
Washington returns nearly the entirety of its offense from the 2022 season with seven of eight positional starters returning that started more than 40 games, the Dawgs are poised once again to put up big numbers on the scoreboard.

Percentage Return from 2022
• Games Started - 88.5%
• Runs - 87.7%
• Hits - 91.4%
• Doubles - 92.3%
• Triples - 87.5%
• Home Runs - 93.8%
• RBIs - 90.9%
• Walks - 82.5%

2018 OMADAWGS
2023 marks the five-year anniversary of Washington's 2018 team that became the first squad in program-history to reach the College World Series. The Huskies ran through the Conway Regional, sweeping three games against UConn and host Coastal Carolina. UW then took a decisive Super Regional Game 3 at Cal State Fullerton, erasing a one-run deficit in the ninth to force extras and walking off the Titans on Kaiser Weiss' sacrifice fly to score Levi Jordan and send the Dawgs to Omaha.

For more information on the UW baseball team, follow @UW_Baseball on Twitter and Instagram.