USC baseball had a terrible Friday night at the NCAA College Station Regional, blowing a ninth-inning lead to Texas State. The Trojans had to run the table Saturday through Monday to get out of Texas with a ticket to the next round. It was a daunting task, but the Men of Troy came through. Their performances from Saturday through Monday were absolutely super. Now USC is heading to Chapel Hill for the super regional showdown against North Carolina. Andy Stankiewicz kept this team focused and unified. The payoff is a first super regional since 2005.
The meaning and importance of this achievement cannot be overstated. USC baseball has gotten better under Andy Stankiewicz, but the Trojans needed the results to confirm that improvement. USC had a clearly better regular season in 2026 than it did in 2025, but without getting past the regionals — something the 2025 team failed to do — it would have been hard to say the Trojans had fully evolved.
Now it’s very easy to say so.
When a program does something significant — and more than that, something it had not achieved in 21 years — it becomes a lot easier to buy into and believe the process taking place inside the walls. USC is, as every Trojan knows, the most successful college baseball program of all time, with 12 College World Series national championships. No other program has more than LSU’s seven. In the 2026 NCAA Tournament, Texas — six titles — is the only team left in the field other than USC with more than two national titles.
Getting back to the supers is a moment of powerful validation for this baseball program. It also gives USC athletics a high-profile team-sport achievement in a decade in which football has struggled and men’s basketball (though poised to be very good next season) has fallen on hard times. USC’s revenue-sport teams have struggled. This baseball achievement came at exactly the right time, and not a moment too soon.
The 2026 season is a success. Nothing which happens against North Carolina will change that. Now we get to see if USC’s year is a modest success or — should it win in Chapel Hill — a massive one.
Stay with us as we cover USC in the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USC baseball making super regionals marks 2026 as a clear success
Reporting by Matt Zemek, Trojans Wire / Trojans Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
