Utah Utes baseball: Unheralded Utes pack bags for NCAA

Before leaving for last week's Mountain West Conference baseball tournament in Fort Worth, Utah coach Bill Kinneberg insisted this was the best Ute team in his six-year tenure with the program.

Their record, however, said otherwise.

The Utes sported a 21-28 record. They were just 8-16 in MWC play and were the sixth and final seed in the conference tourney.

Turns out, it didn't matter.

Kinneberg was right, after all.

Utah is headed to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1960 after winning the MWC's automatic bid. The Utes went 5-1 last week to secure the improbable berth. They'll gather at the Burbidge Center on campus Monday morning to watch the NCAA Selection Show (10:30 a.m., ESPN) to learn where they're headed.

"The feeling that we had this past week, I hope, I can bottle it up for another couple of weeks," said Kinneberg. "The confidence, the focus of our club was tremendous."

The Utes' championship run included a win over BYU (2-1) and a pair of victories over host TCU (9-7, 6-4) and San Diego State (4-1, 9-3). The lone setback was a 9-8 decision to the Aztecs, who rallied with eight runs in eighth inning.

"We really played well with the exception of one inning in six games," Kinneberg said. "To swing the bats as well as we did, to play defense as well as we did, and to pitch as well as we did was really a tremendous feat on the road against great teams in pressure situations."

The Utes placed six players on the all-tournament team. Most Valuable Player Tyler Yagi was joined by Devin Walker, Greg Krause, C.J. Cron, Corey Shimada and Jordan Whatcott. They headlined a squad that turned things around after a disappointing regular season — 12 of their losses were by one run.

"To be honest I just sat back and let the guys go," Kinneberg said of the team's tournament run. "It was really one of those special moments that you know your guys are locked in. They were flat determined to make a statement."

Mission accomplished.

Utah's impending trip to the NCAAs will be just the fourth in team history. The other trips came in 1951 (when they finished third in the College World Series), 1959 and 1960.

"This team did real special. But I think our mindset — I know my mindset — is we're still alive and we're still playing," Kinneberg said.