CWS 2024: Coaches, players speak to media ahead of opening weekend
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - He might be making his seventh trip to the College World Series as a coach this week, but it’s his one trip as a player for which most people around Omaha know Brian O’Connor.
A Council Bluffs native, O’Connor is leading his Virginia Cavaliers to the national stage yet again — a return trip to Omaha that has become a seemingly perennial reminder of his legendary run as a member of the 1991 Creighton baseball squad.
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“Being the local school, and everything that that team put together and everything we did to earn the opportunity to play in Omaha in the College World Series... I’m just so incredibly proud of my teammates and what we did in that particular year,” O’Connor told 6 News during his media availability Thursday.
Now, O’Connor arrives in Omaha again as a coach; the frontman of a Virginia team that finished the season ranked No. 16 in the nation before winning the Charlottesville Super Regional with a 2-0 sweep of Kansas State.
O’Connor knows what it takes to win a title, having led the Cavaliers to the pinnacle of college baseball back in 2015.
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“You have to be great, you certainly have to play great baseball, but you also have to slow the game down and handle the little individual moments,” O’Connor said. “We’re hunting one win. That’s what this is about. You can’t think about what it takes to win it all. You’ve got to put yourself in that position by hunting one win, and that’s what we’re going to look to do tomorrow.”
Virginia will be the first team to take the field for the 2024 CWS when it battles North Carolina at 1 p.m. on Friday, followed by Tennessee vs. Florida at 6 p.m.
Another Omaha native making his triumphant return to the metro is Tennessee’s Dalton Bargo. The Westside alum hit two home runs to help lift the Volunteers over Evansville in Game 3 of the Knoxville Super Regional earlier this week. Now, he gets the chance to perform in front of his hometown.
“It’s everything,” Bargo said Thursday. “I’m just kind of embracing it today, enjoying the moment, enjoying the atmosphere. It’s everything I dreamed of, now seeing it come true, it’s unbelievable.”
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