HOUSTON – While the Milwaukee Brewers and Houston Astros were making preparations at the outset of the teams’ three-game interleague series at Daikin Park on Friday afternoon, May 29, there were a couple sets of eyes fixated on the goings-on in a baseball game elsewhere.
On the visitor’s side it was Brewers manager Pat Murphy, and on the home side it was Astros reliever AJ Blubaugh, both of whom eventually saw what they were hoping for when the UW-Milwaukee Panthers blasted host Auburn, 13-8, in the teams’ first-round NCAA tournament matchup.
“Unbelievable,” said Murphy, who’d already spoken to the Panthers earlier in the season and sent over a motivational video to coach Shaun Wegner on Monday, May 25, a couple days after they’d knocked off host Wright State with a dramatic two-run, walk-off home run to win the Horizon League tournament with a 25-31 overall record.
Auburn, meanwhile, entered play Friday as the No. 4-ranked team in the entire tournament only to fall victim to a UWM team that was playing in the NCAAs for just the fifth time in program history and first time since 2010.
It was just the Panthers’ second NCAA tournament victory ever, and the first time since 2017 a top-four national seed lost its first game.
“It’s super cool, just thinking about the fact I’ve got group chats from 2021 blowing up right now,” said Blubaugh. “It’s just so special because I think it was the second NCAA win in school history, and the last one was in 1999. Think of how many Panthers have gone through the system to work for that.
“And for those guys to do that against Auburn, at Auburn, that’s so incredible.”
The NCAA tournament is an event Murphy is certainly familiar with and fond of, considering his background as former coach at Notre Dame and Arizona State before moving over to the professional ranks. In fact, UWM lost at Arizona State in its first game of the NCAA tournament in 2010 in Tempe, Ariz., but it was the season after Murphy had stepped down from leading the Sun Devils.
“I was just ecstatic for those guys,” he said. “Hey, look, if you just want to go down there, it’s good enough. You’ll be remembered forever. You qualified, won the (Horizon League) tournament. Or, you can go down there and realize the pressure’s on them and just have fun so you don’t have any regrets. Lay it all on the line.
“And when I saw the score today at 12-5 I was like, ‘They’re going to do it.’ Great, great victory for Coach Sean (Wegner). I’m so happy for him.”
Blubaugh, who played at UWM from 2020 through 2022, was the 25th Panthers player to be drafted (seventh round in 2022) but only the second to make it all the way to the major leagues. Entering Friday he was 2-2 with a 4.81 ERA in 22 appearances for the Astros.
A native of Mansfield, Ohio, UWM was the only Division I program to offer him a scholarship coming out of high school.
So, he’s well-versed in being the underdog and reveling in UWM’s victory over an SEC powerhouse on the college game’s biggest stage.
“I can probably speak for most of those kids playing there that Milwaukee was probably their only Division I offers,” Blubaugh said. “So to go to Auburn, where they have the NIL, where they have the top recruits, and guys who are going to get drafted – I don’t know if any of the guys from UW-Milwaukee are going to get drafted this year, obviously I hope they do – but it shows why this is the most beautiful game ever. Anything can happen. It takes getting hot at the right time.
“It’s a great family organization and great coaching.’”
Blubaugh said he attended one Brewers game while he was matriculating at UWM and also pitched once at American Family Field against MSOE. He just missed pitching there for the Astros when they visited town last season.
“That was the first big-league stadium I pitched in, was in Milwaukee,” said Blubaugh, who majored in elementary education and student-taught second and third grade in MPS. “I can’t wait to go back there, because it was awesome.”
Murphy, who was on the other side of the coin while coaching all the highly ranked and high-powered Sun Devils teams at Arizona State, was asked if a win like this one can help set a program off on a new trajectory.
“Well, it gives you validity,” he said. “Look at their early season schedule and who they played (opened at highly regarded LSU). The coach is trying to give them an experience. ‘Look, yeah, we’re not a big-time Division I school in terms of the SEC or something like that. But you come here and can play against those teams, you can get exposure.’
“They know how the portal goes – you’re going to lose some guys, but we’re OK with that. We’re in here to help young players have great experiences and it proves today that a group of young guys can come together and beat anybody on any given day.
“So, yeah, just a great story. Really happy for them. Really happy.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UWM’s win over Auburn in NCAAs was big news prior to Brewers-Astros
Reporting by Todd Rosiak, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
