Cougars Claim Tourney No. 1 Seed, Outright WCC Title

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PROVO, Utah - The No. 24-ranked BYU baseball team has secured the outright West Coast Conference regular season title and the No. 1 seed in next week's WCC Tournament to be held in Stockton, California, starting Thursday, May 23.

This year marks the first time BYU has won an outright regular season title since 1989 and the first time the Cougars will be the top seed at the WCC tourney. BYU has qualified for the four-team, double-elimination tournament five times since the conference began the event in 2013 – once as the two-seed and thrice as the three-seed.

BYU won the WCC Tournament in 2017, losing game one before reeling off four-straight victories. The Cougars have played in 27 conference tournaments overall, winning six (1983, 1985, 1988 in the WAC; 2001, 2002 in the MWC; and 2017 in the WCC). The Cougars have also won eight best-of-three conference championship series after claiming a division title during the regular season (1949, 1952, 1958, 1961, 1968, 1971, 1979, 1981).

In addition, the Cougars have won regular season titles in 1989, 2001, 2016 and 2017.

This year’s senior class is the first class in program history to win conference titles, regular season or tournament, in three different years after taking the regular season titles in 2016, 2017 and 2019 along with the tourney title in 2017. BYU previously won three in five-year stretches multiple times in the 1980s.

With this year’s title, BYU head coach Mike Littlewood ties Hall of Fame coach Glen Tuckett for second-most in Cougar history with three. The pair trail only Gary Pullins, another Hall of Famer, who won seven championships over 23 seasons at BYU.

BYU finished the regular season with a 36-15 overall record and 19-8 in conference play. The Cougars won seven of nine WCC series, including three sweeps. In nonconference play, BYU had seven wins against Power 5 teams (most in program history), defeating Northwestern twice, Washington twice, Ohio State, Oregon and Utah. BYU has also been ranked in the Top 25 four weeks this year.

The Cougars’ first game of the tournament will start at 3 p.m. PT on May 23 at Banner Island Ballpark. While Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s have also clinched spots in the tournament, the fourth team and the rest of the seeding will not be decided until after all conference games conclude on Sunday.

All games for BYU throughout the tournament will air live on TheW.tv, BYU Radio and ESPN960.