South Carolina gets a sprint-off win for the national title

.
… and for 2010, it’s South Carolina!
So, you breathing again yet?
How about THAT finish?! My-oh-my. It wasn’t a walk-off. Not even a jog-off. When Whit Merrifield sliced that bend-it-like-Beckham line-drive to right field, sending Scott Wingo to home plate with the winning run, this officially became a sprint-off win. The rest of the Carolina team [...]

CWS – Day 9 in pictures

.

More images from last night’s first game of the championship series, as South Carolina takes control in their pitch for the first national title in school history.

Gamecocks dig in the first spur. Deep.

For the third straight year in Omaha, the SEC has a team one win away from a national title. But to be honest, none of the two previous teams – Georgia and LSU – have looked as impressive in their opening game of the title round. Carolina got some seeing eye shots throughout the game, slapping 13 singles in their 14 hits, and got some early defensive foul-ups to put UCLA in an early hole, and ended up cruising from there.

So now the Gamecocks are a full 27 outs from winning their first national title in baseball. And if tonight was any indication, 24 hours from the time I’m writing this, they could possibly be the last team ever to dogpile in Rosenblatt Stadium.

But put a heavy emphasis on the word “possibly.” This is a proud Bruin squad that won’t lay down and die.

The Baldcast from Omaha. Plus 10 changes for the new stadium.

Hey guys and dolls, prepare yourself for a hateful, repugnant waste of nine minutes. 

Here is my latest Baldcast, shot while in Omaha before the championship series between UCLA and South Carolina. Below that I’ve included 10 very strong suggestions for the new stadium when it opens in downtown Omaha next June. Here you go:

Ahhhh, UCLA-vs-USC for the title… what a great rivalry!

Before this best-of-three starts, can we at least check to make sure Pete Carroll is using eligible players this time?

The quirky Bruin ace was on again, holding TCU to four hits and striking out 13. Yikes.

Okay, okay, enough B.S. aside… it’s good to see the Bruins and Troja… (sorry, habit) Gamecocks will now be set to square off for the national title starting on Monday night. 

On a day more befitting of an entry in the owner’s manual of a convection oven, the Bruins and the Gamecocks both survived the heat and earned their way to the championship round with wins over TCU and Clemson respectively. The temps inside of scorching-hot Rosenblatt Stadium was so bad that these two sessions saw their lowest paid attendance for a game since 1991.

So yeah, it’s not as sexy as LSU-Texas or as dynamic as Miami-Fullerton or as turnstyle-reliable as North Carolina-Arizona State, but like it or not marketing moguls, we’ve got the Bruins and the Chickens going claw-to-beak for the big brass ring. 

CWS – Day 7 in pictures

 

Double header elimination games day at Rosenblatt, and strangely there wasn’t much excitement to go along with it…

Coach Schlossnagle (foreground) and the Frogs break out of their huddle

A rather bland day in Rosenblatt, but a thing of beauty to TCU and SC.

Even with over 20,000 fans coming through the turnstyles for each of today’s games, the one thing the ushers and security people forgot to let into the stadium today was a sense of excitement. But that wasn’t a problem for TCU or South Carolina, who squashed any form of excitement with dominating mound work.

Michael Roth was a study in resplendency for Carolina, giving the Cocks just what they needed.

For the first time since 1988, the first year of bracket play at the College World Series, both brackets will go to a seventh “if necessary” game on Saturday. That’s because both TCU and South Carolina were able to avoid elimination in a pair of games that had as much intrigue and mystery as a box factory.

Matt Purke and Michael Roth both put on surprising performances, for different reasons, as the Horned Frogs and Gamecocks took all the mystery out of these games today, and that being in quick fashion.

Welcome to the Easton Invitational

 

Jackie Bradley Jr. strikes a halleluia pose after scoring the winning run in the 12th inning tonight.

 

Okay, first, that was a huge, clutch, cocksure performance by South Carolina to beat OU 3-2 in 12 innings. Man, those elimination games are a panic! Wow. Just, wow.

But here’s the other thing, guys. This site is sponsored by Easton. So please excuse me if I quickly point out that all four of the remaining schools at the College World Series are Easton schools. I’m not gonna mince words here, they all play with best technology in their bats and in their equipment they use. That’s the common thread between them all, assuring us for the third year in a row, an Easton-sponsored team will hoist the trophy over their shoulders. 

And before you start calling me a company shill, I thought I’d go ahead and remind you all at this time that Easton also seems to care about college baseball more than just about any corporate entity in the world. Hey, that’s why I’m here and why you’re reading this right now on this outlet. 

Now, that being said, let’s take a quick look at Carolina’s remarkable win tonight in Rosenblatt.

CWS – Days 4 and 5 in pictures

I skipped a day, so here you go people, enjoy…

One of the TCU assistant coaches gives his kid a free ride after the win over Florida State.

Well, I asked for some excitement. Then things went Frog wild.

 

All hail Matt Curry, the conquerer of empires!

 

Oh come on… are you REALLY gonna go watch a three-day tennis match? Or suffer arduously through 90+ minutes of a scoreless soccer game? Gah! Get me out of that misery.

And leave it to TCU. 

A few days ago, the Frogs forged one of the more exciting moments of the CWS so far when they scored some late runs on a bases loaded triple against Gerrit Cole of UCLA back in round two. Tonight the Frogs faced another bases-juiced situation in front of one of the louder crowds I’d ever heard in all my years of games at Rosenblatt. 

This time, Matt Curry delivered. Dare I say… big-freakin-time!