Utah Utes baseball: Team's gritty, determined attitude has earned club NCAA berth

There's a secret to the Utah baseball team's postseason success. Better said, there's a method to the madness that has landed the Utes their first NCAA Tournament berth since 1960.

And it matters little that they're the only team in the 64-team field with a losing record.

"It's irrelevant," said senior pitcher Brian Budrow, who explained that they approached every outing at last week's Mountain West Conference tournament with the same mindset.

Nothing will change, he added, when Utah opens regional play tonight (8 p.m., www.utahutes.com) against national powerhouse Cal State Fullerton.

"We'll go in with the same attitude," Budrow said. "It's a one-game season. You've got to win it."

The Fullerton Regional is actually a double-elimination affair. Besides the Utes and host Titans, Georgia Southern and Gonzaga are also competing for a spot in the upcoming Super Regionals.

Utah, though, favors a single-minded approach. It worked in Fort Worth, where the Utes secured the MWC's automatic bid with six straight solid outings. Only one bad inning prevented them from sweeping through the MWC tournament unscathed.

"It was all or nothing right there," Budrow said. "You've got to play each game to get to the next one. Certainly that's the mentality we had."

Utah coach Bill Kinneberg acknowledged it was "a tremendous feat." The Utes made history by becoming the first No. 6 seed to ever win the conference tournament.

"Our pitchers were on fumes and the guts they all showed was indicative of what they wanted. They were determined from the onset that they were going to compete here and they did," Kinneberg said after Utah's 9-3 win over San Diego State in last Saturday's championship game. "The mental toughness of our team really showed this week and the determination that they had coming into the conference tournament was evident through their energy level."

The high, however, was preceded by peaks and valleys along the way.

Utah lost 12 one-run games during the season. The near-misses cost the Utes a chance to have a winning record. They enter the NCAA Tournament with a 26-29 mark overall.

MWC play was also a source of frustration. Utah got swept in three-game home series by both BYU and New Mexico.