RAZOR FOCUS

WACO, Texas — Josh Ludy was drafted Tuesday by the Philadelphia Phillies, giving him the chance to fulfill his dream of playing professional baseball.
“It was pretty cool, especially because I didn’t even know if I was going to have a chance coming into this year,” said Ludy, a 2008 Jay County High School graduate, of being selected by Philadelphia in the eighth round of the Major League Baseball.
But for now, his focus is exclusively on a group of wild boars from Fayetteville.
Ludy and the second-ranked Baylor Bears will return to the field Saturday when they open a best-of-three Super Regional against the Arkansas Razorbacks. The winner will advance to the College World Series, which runs from June 15 through 26 in Omaha, Neb.
“(Playing in the College World Series) is definitely one of the biggest baseball dreams I’ve ever had, right up there with a pro career,” Ludy said. “But we’ve got a Super Regional we’ve got to take care of so I’m trying not to think about the Omaha thing too much right now and just focusing on what we’ve got to do this weekend to get there.”
The Super Regional pits two teams that took vastly different paths through the regional round of the tournament.
No. 20 Arkansas (42-19), led by Matt Reynolds (.343 batting average, seven home runs, 45 runs, 42 RBIs), went undefeated with two victories over Sam Houston State and one over favored Rice to win the Houston regional.
Ludy (.368 BA, 15 HRs, 69, RBIs, 40 runs) and the Bears (28-15) dropped their regional opener 4-2 to Oral Roberts before winning four straight elimination games to earn their first Super Regional berth in seven years.
“We were kind of playing almost like we were afraid to lose for about a game and a half,” said Ludy. “About halfway through the (UT-Arlington) game we just got everybody together … and just kind of got back to doing what we do, and we just continued that through the rest of the weekend. … We just had to take it one pitch at a time and it ended up working out pretty well for us.”
The senior catcher said his team will take much the same approach this weekend as they try to advance to the College World Series for the first time since 2005, when they went 2-2 and were eliminated by conference rival Texas.[[In-content Ad]]