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Trying to make sure he keeps players on his team from leaving and monitoring the transfer portal for new additions has not left much free time for Kentucky baseball coach Nick Mingione since his team’s historic run to the College World Series. That’s why he enjoyed going to Champions at Keene Trace last week with his son, Reeves, to watch his friend Josh Teater play in the ISCO Championship.

“I have to head to the field now to meet a recruit but it was awesome to spend time with my son and just talk to other folks about our season and the impact our team had on them,” Mingione said. “I met a gentleman who just said, ‘Coach, I just want to thank you. I brought my son to Omaha and my dad to Omaha.’ He said we had three generations and he’s like it was the greatest time.

“So if I’ve heard a story like that one time, I’ve probably heard it 100 times. Just to know we were able to provide a lot of people with that experience is great. But to come out here for three or four hours and just walk around and be free to take some calls when we were in the shade off to the side when Josh was getting ready to make a birdie putt was really good.”

Mingione said he’s had very little time to reflect on what his team did to share the Southeastern Conference regular-season title, host and win a regional and super regional, and then play in Omaha.

“We literally got home on that Wednesday. The next morning we meet with the team to go right into player meetings and into the transfer portal. Right into recruiting your current team,” Mingione said. “It hasn’t stopped yet but hopefully here in a couple of weeks it’ll slow down and I’ll get a chance to just get away for a couple of days.”