photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas head coach Dan Fitzgerald addresses the crowd after the Jayhawks defeated Arkansas in the Lawrence regional championship game on Sunday, May 31, 2026, at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence.

Kansas head coach Dan Fitzgerald found himself transported to another time and place in the early innings of Sunday’s regional final against Arkansas.

Another regional final, specifically, when he was an assistant at Dallas Baptist at the Fort Worth Regional in 2021 and the Patriots fell behind 5-0 against Oregon State in a winner-take-all Game 7.

“I had one of those flashback moments of like, ‘I’ve been here before,’ and then I literally had the thought of, ‘And we’ve been here before like 20-some times,'” Fitzgerald said.

Twenty-four times prior to Sunday night, KU had won a game in which it trailed at some point. It was only a matter of time before it erased the 5-0 deficit — just as DBU had when it went on to beat the Beavers 8-5.

“I just knew that we just needed someone to punch it through, and the crowd was incredible, but we needed to give them something,” Fitzgerald said. “They were just waiting for something.”

Dariel Osoria restored life to the Hoglund Ballpark crowd with a fourth-inning solo shot, by the end of the frame it was at full blast after a go-ahead three-run homer by Tyson LeBlanc, and by the end of the night it had witnessed something unprecedented: a regional championship for the KU baseball program.

“We’ve grinded through this year,” left fielder Brady Ballinger said. “This is my second year in the program, and last year coming up, going to regionals and falling short, it hurt a lot, and this year, (being) able to get back to regionals and not falling short this time, being able to win the whole thing, it was awesome.”

Fitzgerald, whatever midgame flashbacks he may experience, often speaks about how difficult it is for him to reflect on much of anything while the season is ongoing and he’s just trying to overcome one obstacle after another. Even on Sunday night, he said he’ll need “some time in August” to internalize the significance of the regional title, because his mind has already moved on to next weekend’s super regional.

But he did spare a moment to think specifically of the players who helped get KU where it is now.

“If someone had said, ‘Write down all the things you want to accomplish,’ this certainly would have been something: regional championship at home, new left-field fence, that definitely would have been on the list,” Fitzgerald said.

“But the significance of it, for me, the special part is last night seeing guys from my first year, because those guys, the building block of a Collier Cranford and a Cole Elvis, and Jake English staying, and Jake Baker staying, and building that foundation in year one, and then the guys in year two building that. I think the significance is you’re seeing guys that are reconnecting to the program, so many former players here, having the time of their lives watching the guys do what they used to do.”

As much groundwork as the likes of Cranford and Elvis were able to lay in their first two years, the 2025 and 2026 campaigns after they graduated did do quite a bit more to heighten the public awareness of KU baseball, both nationally and locally. As part of the Lawrence Regional, the two most attended games in program history — 4,042 fans saw the Jayhawks face Arkansas on Saturday, and 4,007 turned out for the rematch — served as evidence of that.

“I was completely overwhelmed with this entire weekend,” Fitzgerald said. “I joked about it yesterday, but I was serious. You coach long enough and your emotions get pretty frayed. I don’t get scared during movies anymore. My hair does not stand up on my arms, and it stood up all weekend.”

Ballinger, a longtime fan favorite, only recently returned from a hamate bone injury that had him wondering if he could hold a bat properly. Besides holding the bat well enough to drive in a pair of runs on Sunday, he found himself leading “a few of the claps” for the tightly clustered KU supporters in the Backyard section just beyond the left-field fence. (LeBlanc said that “they made that fence for him,” while Josh Dykhoff joked that “he needs someone to talk to out there.”)

It’s the sort of thing that would have been difficult to envision a few short weeks earlier when left field was still opaque, let alone prior to or even midway through Fitzgerald’s tenure.

“It was awesome,” Ballinger said, “getting to see fans up close and personal, especially in left field, it was just so cool getting to see them and being able to hear them.”

And they could hear them all night.

“Our student section is palpable,” Fitzgerald said. “No one left. It’s the greatest thing ever. We finish the game, we look up and everyone is still there.”

Each stage of the season has brought KU another milestone: the first Big 12 tournament title since 2006, first time winning a regional since 1993, first regular-season conference title since 1949, first time hosting a regional ever.

This impending trip to a super regional is something else new for the program, as that 1993 regional title in Knoxville, Tennessee, sent the Jayhawks straight to the College World Series. So KU is in uncharted territory once again, a place in which it has thrived all year.