Barry’s surprising baseball team leads parade of potential national champs
Eight local NCAA Division II teams have started this week in contention for potential national titles, and the biggest surprise may be the Barry University Bucs baseball squad.
Barry, which finished 18-31 last year, turned it around this season, finishing 32-17 and qualifying for a regional for the first time since 2011. It’s also just the fourth time ever that Barry’s baseball team is going to a regional.
“Outstanding, great – I don’t have enough words to describe how I feel,” said Barry coach Juan Ranero, whose team is on a five-game win streak. “Our players are elated.”
The sixth-seeded Bucs will compete this week in the four-team, double-elimination West Florida regional in Pensacola. Barry’s first game is Thursday at 1 p.m. against Montevallo (Alabama).
Third-seeded Montevallo (38-14) qualified for a regional for the first time since 2019.
There are 56 teams in the NCAA field. If Barry gets past this week’s test, they would have to win a super regional to get to the College World Series on June 3-10 in Cary, North Carolina.
Either way, it’s been a great year for Ranero, who brought in 21 new players out of 34 on his roster. Of his nine position-player starters, seven are newcomers.
“We started a new culture,” Ranero said.
Besides baseball, the Bucs are a serious threat to win two national titles this week in men’s and women’s tennis. The women’s team is ranked No. 1 in the nation. The men are ranked third.
In addition, Barry’s men’s golf team, ranked second in the country, will compete, starting Monday, for a national title in Warren, Ohio.
Nova Southeastern University’s sixth-ranked men’s golf team has also qualified for nationals at Warren, Ohio. And NSU’s women’s tennis team, ranked second in the nation, could match up with Barry in the final.
In addition, NSU’s third-ranked women’s golf team had advanced to nationals for the first time since 2018. The national tournament will start on Tuesday in Eureka, Missouri.
Last but not least, NSU’s softball team (41-13) has advanced to a Super Regional for the first time in program history.
NSU softball coach Julie LeMaire, hired in October of 2015, has overcome adversity to get this far.
In her first year here, NSU finished 12-39 overall and 2-22 in conference.
“We had just 13 players,” LeMaire said. “By the end of the season, we had just nine healthy players.”
Things got better, and the Sharks were 19-10 when COVID shut everything down in 2020. Last year, the Sharks won the Sunshine State Conference for the first time in school history.
Now, the unranked Sharks will play a best-of-three series at No. 1 Tampa (43-3). The teams played a three-game set at NSU in March. NSU won the opener, but Tampa won a doubleheader by a combined total of five runs.
LeMaire, though, is confident in her team, especially lefty Alyssa Drogemuller, who threw every NSU pitch in the regionals.
“We’re playing our best softball of the season right now,” LeMaire said. “We have the fastest outfield in the conference, and we’re lethal at the top of our lineup with speed and hitting.”
THIS AND THAT
▪ Florida Memorial (22-24) won the third annual Black College World Series on Saturday night, defeating Albany State 5-4 in 19 innings. The game was played in Montgomery, Alabama. FMU is an NAIA school. Albany State competes in NCAA Division II. The top four available NAIA teams and the top four available NCAA Division II teams are invited to compete.
▪ The Miami Dade College Sharks baseball team (34-16-1) had its season ended on Sunday with an 8-7 loss to Northwest Florida. The Sharks fell two wins short of qualifying for the Junior College World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado.
▪ The St. Thomas University women’s tennis team (18-6) and STU’s men’s tennis team (14-10) have advanced to nationals starting on Tuesday in Mobile, Alabama. The women are ranked 11th in the nation in the NAIA. The men are ranked 15th nationally.
