Armed with a first-round bye and sights set on Omaha, the Miami Hurricanes look to navigate the ACC Tournament while prioritizing long-term health over immediate hardware.
Miami, FL. – The Miami Hurricanes baseball program has a rich history of winning, but similar to football, it has become a distant memory in modern times. However, they will have an opportunity to change things, starting in the ACC Tournament. The team clinched a first-round bye after a 36-17 regular season, 16-14 against Atlantic Coast Conference opponents. They will await the winner between the Stanford Cardinal and California Golden Bears.
The Hurricanes’ most recent hardware in baseball came at the 2008 ACC Championship. The program came close to adding another in 2023, but fell short after an 11-5 outing against the Clemson Tigers, who claimed the title. The Hurricanes have an opportunity to end a long-time drought, but when asked what it would personally mean to achieve that, coach J.D. Arteaga is set on a bigger prize.
“Ultimately, our goal is the College World Series in Omaha and winning over there,” he said. “I want to end that drought since [2001]. Not to say I’m not interested in ending this [ACC Championship] drought. We want to come in and win four games, but we’re not going to do anything crazy to exhaust our pitching or anything to win this tournament and put in jeopardy the [NCAA] tournament next week. Win one game at a time. We’re not going to overextend anybody. If the chips fall where they fall and it’s our side, we win a tournament, great, but we’re not going to go off script to do anything crazy here this weekend.”
The Hurricanes have appeared on the national stage in Nebraska six times since the last win in 2001, most recently in 2016, when they faced a first-round exit to the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos.
In the latest D1Baseball’s Field of 64 projections, the Hurricanes are the second seed, starting regionals in Athens, Georgia. They have the offense, even without junior All-American third baseman Daniel Cuvet, to carve out a long run, but the pitching and infield defense inconsistencies need to be fixed.
The postseason competition starts in the ACC Tournament. The Hurricanes faced both Stanford and Cal in the regular season, winning both series 2-1. Despite uncertainty for the next few hours, coach Arteaga elaborated on the team’s preparation ahead of Wednesday’s game.
“You prepare yourself,” he added. “You’re really playing the game at a high level, in a right way, you’re really competing against yourself. When you do what we’re capable of doing and you do things that we’re good at, you’re going to win games. It doesn’t matter who the opponent is.”
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