Darren Williams looks back on Kentucky's success this season after Super Regional loss

It’s fair to say that there was plenty of pressure for Kentucky to make things happen this season. Now, after coming up short in the Baton Rouge Super Regional, there’s no doubt that the Wildcats succeeded with what RHP Darren Williams described as a ‘dream season’.

Williams spoke following Kentucky’s season-ending 8-3 loss to LSU inside Alex Box Stadium on Sunday. Personally, he said it meant the world to him considering how we worked his way back from injury. As a team, though, Williams had a lot of pride in how they played together in order to achieve what they did over the course of the season.

“The dream, man. The dream,” Williams said. “A year ago, I couldn’t throw. Couldn’t even throw a baseball a year ago.”

“To be able to do what this team did? I’ll never forget it,” said Williams. “Nobody picked us at all at the beginning of the year. Just the togetherness, the grittiness, the unselfishness. Like coach always talks about, man. It’s so true. That team loves each other, man. Tight group, on and off the field. Like, the dream season, what a Kentucky kid wants to do if he plays for Kentucky.”

Kentucky’s final record for 2023 sits at 40-21. That included a 27-3 start with a 17-game win streak mixed in at the beginning. Things got off the rails a bit by the time that they got into conference play. Still, they were able to finish with a winning record in the SEC.

Then, in the postseason, the Wildcat’s showed off just how battle-tested they were all year from one of the nation’s toughest schedules. During the span of two days in the Lexington Regional, UK won three games over West Virginia and Indiana to advance to the Super Regional where, in the end, they did end up being eliminated by LSU.

Overall, Kentucky accomplished several things that hadn’t been accomplished in some time, specifically Nick Mingione’s first season in Lexington back in 2017. That’s why, regardless of the outcome down in Baton Rouge, Williams was proud of how far he and his teammates came this year.