Sports Update
Baseball at its Best
by Stephen Smith
During
the past three weeks the top 64 college baseball teams
have been battling to get to one place, Omaha’s
Rosenblatt Stadium on Saturday night for game one
of the best of three championship series. The Texas
Longhorns and Florida Gators are the chosen two, having
outlasted everyone in their path to get this far.
During the past week in Omaha, baseball
fans have been treated to one of the best CWS in recent
memory. Thirteen games have been played in Omaha by
the eight teams that qualified. An amazing eight games
were decided by two runs or less. Two of the games
went extra innings, both elimination games where the
loser would go home. Pitching has stepped up as each
game is seeing around eight and a half runs between
the two teams combined.
That’s not to say that hitters
haven’t had their moments either. In an elimination
game between Arizona State and Nebraska, Jeff Larish
stepped to the plate with his team trailing 7-6 in
the bottom of the 9th with two outs. Larish sent a
pitch over the center field wall, quieting to hometown
pro-Nebraska crowd with a solo shot to tie the game,
a game that Arizona State went on to win 8-7 in the
11th. The homer was Jeff’s third blast on the
day, tying a World Series record with current Dodger
JD Drew when he was at Florida State and former Stanford
player Edmond Muth.
Florida, the 7th seed nationally, comes
into the final with a 48-21 record. They hosted their
four team regional in Gainesville, sweeping through
regional play undefeated. Arch-rival Florida State
was the opponent for the best of three Super Regional.
The host Gators took care of the Seminoles in two
to advance to Omaha. Once in Omaha, Florida beat Tennessee
and Nebraska 6-4 and 7-4 respectively to get to their
bracket title game. A pesky Arizona State team came
in fought off elimination for the third day in a row,
setting up a winner take all showdown to move on.
The Gators got down 3-0 early, but the bats woke up,
scoring six unanswered runs to send them to the title
series.
Unlike Florida who advanced to Omaha
without any problems, Texas made it interesting. In
the regional they hosted, the lost to Arkansas 9-2,
forcing them to comeback and win three straight to
move on. The Longhorns got their revenge as they took
out Arkansas 19-2 and 5-2 to move on to their Super
Regional at Ole Miss, the 5th seed nationally. Texas
got behind the eight ball once again, losing in the
first game of the best of three series. The Longhorns
came back once again, winning back to back games on
the road, spoiling the dreams of the Rebels and their
fans. Once in Omaha, Texas has come through, playing
their best baseball all season. Behind strong pitching
Texas beat #4 Baylor 5-1 and #1 Tulane 5-0. Texas
met up with their Big XII rival Baylor once again
to move on to the title series. With the score tied
at 3 in the bottom of the 9th, Chance Wheeless hit
a leadoff home run, advancing Texas to the finals.
The final showcases the best pitching
staff in the country for Texas against the slugging
Gators. Florida leads the College World Series in
home runs at six while the entire Texas pitching staff
has a 1.00 ERA during their stay in Omaha. Look for
Texas small ball of bunting runners over to put just
enough runs on the board for the Longhorn pitchers.
It’ll go three games, but Texas will avenge
last season’s loss to Cal State Fullerton in
the title series and capture their sixth national
championship.
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