Hey Stitch-Heads.

So if you haven’t seen it already, here’s my Day 1 write-up of the Super Regionals that was posted on ESPN.com tonight. Check it out by clicking on this highlighted link here.

It's all smiles for the Devils here. Tim Esmay (center) and his charges went into Austin and took down Taylor Jungmann and the Horns in game one.

It was an interesting day in the Super Regionals on Friday. Florida and Vanderbilt looked like unstoppable forces, North Carolina held off Stanford and Arizona State was the only team to go into an opposing den and pull out a game one win, taking down Texas.

A dejected Taylor Jungmann shows how many losses he has this season, both of which came in the post-season.

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CHAPEL HILL SUPER REGIONAL

The doctor of college baseball was able to take in game one of the Chapel Hill Super between the homestanding Tarheels and the Stanford Cardinal. Here’s a quick overview of the Heels big win and a few pics he snapped along the way.

Patrick Johnson was on his game Friday.

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STANFORD – 2

NORTH CAROLINA – 5

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IN SUMMARY.

Patrick Johnson just keeps dealing for the North Carolina Tarheels. Johnson was able to outduel Stanford starter Mark Appel to won his 7th straight decision by quieting the hot Stanford bats, limiting the Cardinal to one run on five singles in 7.2 innings of work.  By doing so, he brought UNC to within one game of another trip to Omaha.

Johnson, whose only loss was to archrival North Carolina State on April 15th, was solid all game long never allowing many hits to be strung together, but saw his scoreless innings streak end at 30.2 innings when Stanford scored in the 8th inning.

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WHAT IT MEANS.
With a win on Saturday or Sunday, North Carolina would make its 5th College World Series appearance in the past six years.

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SCORING SUMMARY.
UNC- Ben Bunting RBI single in 2nd innning  [1-0 UNC]
UNC- Seth Baldwin 2-run HR in 7th inning  [3-0 UNC]
Stanford- Brian Ragira 2RBI single in 8th inning  [3-2 UNC]
UNC- Seth Baldwin bases-loaded walk in 8th inning  [4-2 UNC]
UNC- Chaz Frank sacrifice fly in 8th inning  [5-2 UNC]

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NOTES:
- Attendance 3,489; temperature 94 degrees
- Mike Fox returned to coach UNC after missing last week’s Regionals when his mother passed away
- Seth Baldwin’s 2 run home run in the 7th inning came after he bunted foul twice in trying to lay down a sacrifice bunt
- Patrick Johnson has allowed on 3 earned runs in his last 45 innings pitched
- Johnson’s 13 win season is the fifth time a UNC pitcher has won 11 or more games in a season since 2006
[Andrew Miller 13-2 in 2006, Robert Woodard 11-2 and Adam Warren 12-0 in 2007, Alex White 13-3 in 2008]
- North Carolina has 36  NCAA Tournament wins since 2006, the most of any school (Oregon State is 2nd with 28)
- North Carolina has 15 straight NCAA Tournament wins (Regionals and Super Regionals) in games it has hosted.

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PICS:

Mark Appel nearly went pitch-for-pitch with Johnson, giving the Cardinal a chance. He also uniquely continued to wear the straps of his stockings outside the cleats.

Seth Baldwin came in hitting just .246 but was the straw that stirred the drink for UNC today going 2-for-3 with a home run and 3RBI.

Tarheel reliever Michael Morin was so good he was busting out of his uni.

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MORE FROM SANTA CLARA TOMORROW.

I’ll be making the drive up to the bay area tomorrow for game one of the most interesting Super Regional matchup this weekend between Dallas Baptist and Cal in Santa Clara. Once interesting note about the series is that the first two games have already sold out. But SCU’s stadium only seats 1,431 fans. Makes you wonder, don’t you think Cal should have asked rival Stanford if it was okay to play this weekend at Sunken Diamond instead?

Better yet, would Stanford had allowed their rivals use of the stadium?

G’night.

Wild Day In the Regionals

I was able to catch a few games and get some pics and write ups from others today. For those of you wanting to see what I wrote for my ESPN daily wrap-up,
click here and check it out.

Otherwise, read on…

Here are a few more things the ESPN column had with it…

Laid an Egg:

- Georgia Tech.

Already fighting off the label of “underachievers” by many in the college baseball community, Tech went out and lost a 2-1 decision to four-seed Austin Peay. The Techsters stranded 11 baserunners, seven of them in scoring position. Now the Rambling Wreck will have to rely on Jed Bradley (and hope they can count on Mark Pope to regain form) to get them out of this hole they’ve dug.

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Worst Conference Performance:

- Pac 10

The west coast monster conference saw UCLA lose to a four-seed, while Cal and Arizona got handcuffed by Baylor and Seton Hall and Oregon State and Arizona State got the bejesus scared out of them by Arkansas-Little Rock and New Mexico before waking up in time. Only Stanford looked as advertised, downing Kansas State with ease.

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Longest Game:

- 3:15, Stetson 8 – North Carolina State 7

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Shortest Game:

- 1:50, Creighton 2 – Georgia 1

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Hottest:

- Tallahassee Regional.

At 2pm today, the mercury hit 99 degrees, with a 102 degree heat index.

(Although it should be noted that the Fort Worth Regional had a field temperature of 109 degrees.)

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Coolest:

- Fullerton Regional.

At last pitch of the Fullerton-Illinois game it was 57 degrees.

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First Pitch:

- 9:01am, Pacific Time (Alabama vs. UCF in Tallahassee)

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Final Pitch:

- 2:03am, Eastern Time (Illinois at Cal State Fullerton)

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Highest Attendance for home team:

- South Carolina: 8,091

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Lowest Attendance for home team:

- UCLA: 1,925

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Other than that write-up, here is some of what I saw today, along with some Stitch-Head contributions.

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AT JACKIE ROBINSON STADIUM.

GAME 1:

- Irvine jumps out to big lead and de-fangs the Dogs.

UCI downed Fresno State with an early assault and a clampdown of pitching on the mound to cruise to the winner’s bracket showdown.
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UCI – 500 140 200 – 12 15 3
FSU- 002 010 003 – 6 8 4
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WP: Matt Summers, 11-2
LP: Greg Gonzalez, 11-1
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Top Hitters:
Jordan Leyland, 2-for-4, HR, 5RBI
D.J. Crumlich, 3-for-5, RBI
Ronnie Shaeffer, 2-for-4, 3RBI
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PICS

Matt Summers was his usual awesome self again for UCI today, pitching comfortably with a lead all day.

This Jordan Leyland lumberjack swing had the ball headed for the right field fence.

Glove raised and everything, Fresno's Dusty Robinson had the ball measured at the wall.

Robinson appears to have the deep fly ball robbed at the fence.

but despite his assured feeling, the ball had bounced off his glove and beyond the field of play.

Fresno's defensive play wasn't stellar and a few near-misses like this one didn't help either.

Fresno ace Greg Gonzalez (center) got jumped on early and suffered his first loss of the season.

GAME 2:

- No offense here, but the Bruins revert to some bad old ways.

UCLA returned to their early-season ways where good pitching was not accompanied by any sort of decent hitting whatsoever, moving the Bruins to within one game of the end of their season. Of course give USF mound stud Kyle Zimmer a modicum of credit by going the distance and holding the Bruins in check all night.
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U.S.F. – 001 010 010 – 3 11 0
UCLA – 000 000 000 – 0 4 1
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WP: Kyle Zimmer, 6-4
LP: Gerrit Cole, 6-8
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Top Hitters:
Nick Balog, 4-for-4, 2RBI
Jeff Gelalich, 2-for-4
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PICS

San Francisco's Kyle Zimmer had the right kind of kick tonight, holding the Bruins to four hits and striking out 11.

This scene was unfortunately familiar to Bruin batters today.

... since Kyle Zimmer had a little magic in everything he threw tonight.

UCLA head coach John Savage and Saturday stud Trevor Bauer look on despondently as the Dons close edge toward a win.

After the game, no grand celebrations here as the USF players seemed almost business-like in walking off the field.

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WHAT I GOT FROM THE DR. OF COLLEGE BASEBALL
The good doctor was at the Chapel Hill Regional that saw James Madison out-slug Florida International 11-7 and then caught North Carolina’s 4-0 blanking of a game bunch of Maine Black Bears, 4-0.

Here’s his report…

GAME 1:

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James Madison – 11

Florida International – 7

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The Florida International Golden Panthers pounded out five home runs in Game 1 of the Chapel Hill Regional, but it wasn’t enough as James Madison did some pounding of their own to win 11-7 and advance to the winner’s bracket game against host North Carolina on Saturday night.

The scoring started early when the game’s second batter, James Madison catcher Jake Lowery, roped his 23rd home run of the season off FIU starter R.J. Fondon.  Florida International countered in the bottom of the 1st inning when Garrett Wittels lined a solo home run of his own and was followed by four straight hits to account for two more runs, leaving the Floridians with a 3-1 lead against Dukes’ starter Sean Tierney.

James Madison came right back to grab a 5-3 lead in the 2nd inning with 4 runs. The big blow was a single by Lowery with the bases loaded which led to 3 runs when FIU right fielder Yoandy Barroso slipped trying to field the ball and it skipped past him all the way to the wall. Not to be outdone, FIU countered with back to back solo home runs by Jabari Henry and Pablo Bermudez in the bottom of the 2nd inning to tie it at five apiece.

From there, believe it or not, the pitching of both teams took control. FIU’s R.J. Fondon settled in and retired 13 of 14 JMU batters until the 7th inning and JMU reliever D.J. Brown, who came in for Tierney with two outs in the 2nd inning, pitched 7.1 innings of 3-hit ball to cool off the Florida International bats. Well, sort of.

Barroso had one of the three hits off Brown with yet another solo home run in the 4th inning to give FIU a 6-5 lead until the wheels came off for the Golden Panthers in the decisive 7th inning.

Fondon gave up two singles to start the inning and was replaced by Jose Velazquez, who came into the game with a 2.06 ERA in 34 relief appearances.  Velazquez couldn’t retire any of the five batters he faced as he gave up four hits and a walk in what turned out to be a 6-run inning that gave James Madison  the lead for good at 11-6.

Florida International’s only other run was a solo HR by Mike Martinez to lead off the 8th inning.

WP-  D.J. Brown       7.1 IP  3H  2R  2ER  2BB  5K
LP-    R. J. Fondon      6 IP  9H  7R  5ER  0BB  2K

Top Offensive Performers: (nearly everyone)
James Madison
-Jake Lowery  3-4,  HR, 3R,  3RBI
-David Herbek  3-5,  2 doubles, 1 RBI
-Johnny Bladel  2-5,  2R
-Matt Tenaglia  1-4,  2 RBI
-Alex Foltz  2-4, 1 RBI
-Ian Haynes  2-5,  2R,  1RBI

Florida International
-Mike Martinez  2-4, HR, double, 2R, 1 RBI
-Garrett Wittels  2-4, HR, 1R, 1RBI
-Yoandy Barroso  2-4, HR, 1R, 1RBI
-Jabari Henry  1-3, HR, 1R, 1 RBI
-Pablo Bermudez  1-4, HR, 1R, 1RBI

NOTES:
- The NCAA strikes again:  The father of FIU starting pitcher R.J. Fondon was sitting by me and pulled out a small camcorder when the game started, but was ordered by the game day staff to stop using it because the NCAA would not allow anyone to film with any type of recorder without a media pass.  It’s a bit much when a parent cannot record their own child.
- All five Florida International HRs came with the bases empty
- James Madison’s dynamic duo of Jake Lowery and David Herbek were a combined 6-9 with four runs and four RBI
- Despite the high score the game lasted only 2-hours, 46 minutes
- Garrett Wittels is very active during games, always chattering and encouraging his teammates; his favorite phrase seemed to be “never know, never know” whenever a guy got on base (as in you never know if he’s going to try to steal)

I like this quote from Florida International coach Turtle Thomas about Velazquez’s rough relief appearance, “Jose Velazquez has been – we call him “The Machine” for a reason – normally he goes out there and he just absolutely shuts the door…   It’s like death, taxes, and money in the bank. He’s about as sure of a bet as you want.”

Defensive miscues and all, the Dukes kept the pressure on FIU with aggressive baserunning all day.

FIU's Joey Behar gets tagged out at the dish.

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GAME 2:

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North Carolina – 4

Maine – 0

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The nightcap in the Chapel Hill Regional was more or less a polar opposite from the first game, with host North Carolina jumping out to a 4-0 lead in the 1st inning and then neither team was able to score after that.

UNC got all its runs in its first at bat when two walks by Maine starter Keith Bilodeau set up an RBI single by Jesse Wierzbicki and a 3-run monster shot over the net beyond the left field wall by Jacob Stallings.

Freshman Kent Emanuel (7-1) got the win for North Carolina with 8.0 innings of 7-hit, shutout ball before Michael Morin came in to shut it out with a scoreless 9th inning. Keith Bilodeau (10-3) was impressive for Maine in limiting the Tar Heels to five hits but took the loss.

WP- Kent Emanuel: 8IP  7H  0R  1BB  5K
LP- Keith Bilodeau: 7IP  5H  4R  4ER  2BB  6K

Top Offensive Performers:
UNC
-Jesse Wierzbicki  3-4, double,  1R,  1RBI
-Jacob Stallings  1-3, HR, 1R, 3RBI

Maine
-Taylor Lewis  2-3
-Joey Martin  2-4

NOTES:
- North Carolina was without head coach Mike Fox, who missed the game for personal reasons
- Associate head coach Scott Forbes coached the game in Fox’s absence and assistant Scott Jackson coached third base
- UNC’s top two hitters, Levi Micheal and Colin Moran went 0-for-8, and UNC’s 7-thru-9 hitters went 0-for-9
- Maine outhit UNC 7-to-5
- Game time was only 2-hours, 17 minutes
- Attendance  for game two was 2,269
- Official attendance of 1,553 for game one must have been based on tournament passes purchased, as there were no more than a couple of hundred people in the stands

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PICS

UNC's rubber-armed Kent Emanuel got the win for the Heels over Maine.

UMaine's Keith Bilodeau kept the Black Bears in the game with 8.0 innings of strong work.

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THE NIGHTCAP AT GOODWIN FIELD.

Cal State Fullerton puts Illinois on the Pill.
The Titans looked shaky early on, but rebounded from a two-run deficit to pull away in the end, making a very close game appear more of a runaway than it really was. Tyler Pill was the star on the mound, going 8.0 innings and tossing 11Ks to improve to 7-1, and at the dish, going 2-for-3 with a pair of RBI
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Illinois – 020 002 000 – 4 5 1
CSUF – 000 223 13x – 10 13 0
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WP: Tyler Pill, 7-1
LP: Kevin Johnson, 2-7
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Top Hitters:
Ill:
- Matt Dittman, 1-for-3, HR, 2RBI
- Casey McMurray, 2-for-3, 2RBI
- Brandon Hohl, 2-for-4
CSUF:
- Ivory Thomas, 2-for-3, RBI
- Tyler Pill, 2-for-3, 2RBI
- Greg Velazquez, 3-for-4, 2RBI

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PICS

Illinois 1st baseman Matt Dittman smacked a two-run bomb and was a pest to Tyler Pill and the Titans all night long.

Dittman also kept his teammates loose with the occasional joke from time to time.

With two men on and moving, Fullerton centerfielder Michael Lorenzen was able to snag this ball in the gap.

Titan coach Dave Serrano wasn't so crash-hot over the umpiring tonight either.

Now THIS is how a college pitcher should look. Tyler Pill, dirty from hustling around the basepaths, was still flinging from the mound in the 8th inning.

Michael Lorenzen slides into home with the go-ahead run. Illinois would not be able to recover.

The Fullerton outfielders do that familiar "fun bunch"-type of celebratory jump.

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Okay, it’s now officially morning here. Gah! Do me a favor, if you’re reading this anytime before noon, please don’t call me and wake me up.

G’night. (or G’day, whatever)

This is getting out-of-control man. The last Friday of the regular season saw a bunch of stunners in and out of conference tournament play. The most stunning of which had to be a bunch of wild Lobos lunching on some suddenly-punchless Frogs. I can just picture the look on the bubble teams’ faces as they watched in head-slapping, fist-thru-the-wall frustration.

"I am a Golden God!" UNM's Logan Lippert strikes the pose after his catch deep-sixes No. 7 TCU.

But I’m going to start today’s entry with another shout-out and sincere plea to the NCAA selection committee. In a perfect world, I think every conference regular season champion would get a red carpet to the Field of 64. But if we can’t have our perfect world scenario and have to settle for the warped world of craptacular reality, I’d still like to propose five regular season champions that should get at-large bids, if they don’t win their conference tournament of course.

FIVE CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS THAT SHOULD GET AT-LARGE BIDS.

As I stated in yesterday’s write-up, the subject of parity comes up a lot more often in college baseball than it has in the past. Yet, too often, conference champions are given the shaft by the NCAA selection committee instead of given the benefit of the doubt about how good they REALLY are. Here are five title-winners that may not get bids to the Big Dance as an at-large, but I’m stating here and now that they should. (RPI ranks reflect the beginning of the week).

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1. HAWAII

Record: 33-24

RPI: 74

This Week: 1-1 in the WAC tourney so far.

Reason they should go:

The WAC is always foolishly underrated year-in, year-out (and I still can’t figure out why). Plus, if you ask Texas, Oregon and Fresno State, they’ll vouch the Warriors are legit. Plus, the rest of the country really does deserve to see what Kolten Wong can do on the diamond.

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2. KENT STATE

Record: 41-15

RPI: 50

This Week: 2-1 in MAC tourney so far.

Reason they should go:

Look people, the Flashes RPI was inside the top 25 before MAC play began. A ridiculous amount of talent will make them a dangerous tourney team. All they need is a chance. All they deserve is a chance.

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3. TEXAS STATE

Record: 38-21

RPI: 46

This Week: 3-1 in SLC tourney so far.

Reason they should go:

You have to figure the champions of the 8th best conference will get a bid. And should get a bid. And believe me, nobody in the field of 64 wants to face Carson Smith on that first Friday.

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4- STONY BROOK

Record: 42-12

RPI: 68

This Week: Went 1-2 in AmEast tournament.

Reason they should go:

The coaches poll has them at No. 30 in the receiving votes, so fellow coaches respect this team. I’ve seen this team in person, they’re fundamentally sound and fearless. Also, no one else in the country can claim 27 wins on the road. Twenty-freakin-seven.

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5- TROY

Record: 42-17

RPI: 47

This Week: 2-1 at Sun Belt tourney

Reason they should go:

The Trojans went 2-1 vs. both Southern Miss and FIU, a pair of NCAA locks, helping push their ISR ranking into the top 40. They won the regular season crown of the nation’s 6th-best conference.

And while we’re at it: Go ahead and add Dallas Baptist and Cal State Bakersfield from the indy ranks as well. They’ve put together really good wins and rank in the Top 50 of the ISR as well.

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Now on to the best and worst of this last Friday of the regular season in college baseball.

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– THREE UP

Here are some of the good things from the day.

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1- THE CHAMPIONS, PART 1

- NEW MEXICO

Wow. The Lobos took down No. 7 TCU for the second time in three days with a gutty 4-2 win at Tony Gwynn Stadium. Austin House went 7.0 innings, striking out nine Frogs and giving up just one earned run. Reliever Bobby Mares gave up just one hit in his two innings of relief, earning his first save of the season.

A rabid pack of wild, unpredictable Wolves hoist the Mountain West trophy.

Coach Ray Birmingham in the post-game when interviewed by The Mountain’s Bill Doleman, pointing at his team. “Those guys right there played as a team. They all stayed the course, they fought the fight and they played the hardest schedule in the country. And it paid off, didn’t it boys?”

When asked about what their opponents in the NCAA tournament will probably think when they’re matchup up against a team that is 20-39, “I hope it tricks them. And it will because these guys can beat any team in the country.”

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2- THE CHAMPIONS, PART 2

- MAINE

Beat Albany 10-1 to lock down the America East tournament title and earn the auto-bid to the Big Dance. This will be the Bears first NCAA trip since 2006. Once again, it was unbelievable lock-down pitching that did the trick, holding the Danes to three hits. Stephen Perakslis went 7.1 innings, striking out eight, and Shaun Coughlin came in and got the save. The Black Bears have now won 17 of their last 18 games.

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3- MATT SUMMERS, UC IRVINE

Threw a no-hitter in the Anteaters’ 2-0 win over Long Beach State.

Summers was pretty efficient, allowing only one walk and one hit batsmen and also striking out seven along the way as he continually frustrated the Dirtbags through the night. Summers is now 10-2 on the year with an ERA of 1.60. UCI also improves to 39-14 and now sit just a game back of Fullerton in the Big West standings. However, if you’re looking for a point of contention, the ‘Eaters had 13 hits in the game and still just two runs to show for it. That can’t last people.

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HONORABLE MENTIONS:

- SAN FRANCISCO.

The Dons moved to within one game of winning the WCC title with today’s 4-2 win at Gonzaga. Kyle Zimmer, taking over the Friday role from injured ace Matt Lujan, held the Zags to five hits and two runs in 7.0 innings. Cameron Love came on to get the save with two hitless innings. USF is now 30-22 overall and 15-4 in WCC play. But the Dons’ RPI is sitting way down at No. 113, so they’ll have to win one of the last two games in this series to get to the NCAAs for the first time since 2006.

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- MINNESOTA’s TOM WINDLE.

The frosh Gopher hurler got the save in today’s first game at the Big 10 tournament with 3.0 innings of one-hit relief, gathering four strikes along the way. Then, after a 45-minute break, he started the Purdue game, throwing 5.0 innings of scoreless ball. He was slightly gassed but was able to spread out seven hits and strike out three in a no-decision. For the season, Windle is 7-2 and 1.56.

Strapping frosh hurler Tom Windle will be a valuable weapon for the Golden Gophers for the next few years.

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- ALBANY’ s KASCEIM GRAHAM

Before they were knocked out by Maine, I’ve gotta mention the stoic effort that UAlbany’s starter put forth vs. Stony Brook. The dynamo threw a complete game 6-hitter with 7Ks in the 4-1 win to advance the Great Danes to the championship round of the America East tournament. Graham improved to 4-2 and was able to oust the regular season champions from the tourney.

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- BELMONT’s DEREK HAMBLEN

The Bruin lead off man belted a two-out, two-run thunderclub in the top of the 9th inning to help BU down Mercer 6-4 and propelled the Bruins into the title round of the Atlantic Sun tournament. As the 6th seed, the Bruins will have to lose twice tomorrow to not advance to the NCAA tournament. Special mention has to be made for the Bruin hurlers who held Mercer’s dangerous top five in the order to a 2-for-17 day.

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- ARKANSAS STATE’s ANDY FERGUSON.

The ASU ace went the distance in a complete-game four-hitter as part of a 3-0 win over Louisiana, which eliminated the Ragin Cajuns from the Sun Belt tournament. Ferguson also struck out 11 while walking just two to improve to 7-4 and keep A-State alive.

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- MANHATTAN

For the second time in two days the Jaspers sent their fans to the ICU by scoring a jog-off victory in the MAAC tournament. This time the Big Green scored two runs in the bottom of the 9th inning to beat Siena 8-7 and advance to the tile round of the MAAC. But it was a painful loss for the Saints as they had Manhattan down to its last out, but a throwing error on a groundout allowed Mark Onorati and Chad Salem to come around to score.

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- EAST CAROLINA’s SETH MANESS

Threw a complete-game three-hitter with 9Ks and one walk in the Pirates’ 4-0 win over Southern Miss. Maness improved to 9-3 on the season.

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- USC’s ANDREW TRIGGS

Too bad the Trojans didn’t start playing like this back in March, right? Gah! The Men of Troy have taken off to the stratosphere since Frank Cruz was named their permanent head coach. Today, the junior right-hander struck out a career high 13 Cougar batters in a 6-2 win over Washington State. Triggs went 7.2 innings and spread out eight hits and two walks.

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- TEXAS A&M CORPUS CHRISTI’s 9TH-INNING MAGIC.

The Islanders took down a pair of wins to survive for another day in the Southland Conference tournament. Of note was their first win, a 2-1 jog-off conquest of UT-San Antonio. It was Bobby Buckner that came on in the bottom of the 9th to go yard for the first time this season and supply the winning run. In their second game of the day the Islanders scored eight runs in the 9th inning to surpass SFA 11-5. More on that below.

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- APPALACHIAN STATE’s SETH GRANT.

Grant tossed his first career shutout in a 5-0 win over Furman to survive in an elimination game and improve to 33-26 on the year. Green struck out four and spread around six hits to improve to 5-9 on the season.

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- DAYTON’s JACOB MAYERS.

The Flyer starter put his team on his back and carried them into the A-10 title round against Charlotte. Mayers pulled out a complete-game effort, spraying out six hits and collecting 11 strikeouts along the way in a 7-2 win over Rhode Island.

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- UCLA’s GERRIT COLE

First off, lets just be happy that the dude actually won a game. He’s pitched so well, but his offense has come up so lame many times this year, that’s why his won-loss mark is a not-so-All-American-like 5-7. (Yick!, right?) Well tonight, the Bruin bats helped their Friday starter out with 12 hits in a 10-3 rout of Arizona State. Secondly, Cole was clocked by ESPN’s Keith Law at this ridiculous MPH:

Hint for batters: This'll hurt if it hits you.

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– THREE DOWN

Ya’ know, some of the bad stuff out there.

1- MARK JOHNSON’s LAST GAME.

Sam Houston State head coach Mark Johnson coached his final game of his lengthy career today in the 13-2 loss to Texas State. The long-time skip of Texas A&M and The Sam finishes his 26-year career with 1,043 wins. TSU’s Colton Turner threw a complete-game five-hitter to improve to 9-2 and is a fine one-two punch with ace Carson Smith.

After the game, coach Johnson was his typical matter-of-fact self about it all.

“I don’t have a lot of reflection right now. It was nice that Ty Harrington (the Texas State coach) sent the guys over. That was a nice touch. I haven’t really reflected on walking out of here for the last time. I’ll still be going to ballparks, so it won’t be the last ball game I see.”

He also had a few positive words for the Southland Conference.

“I think our conference is really, really good this year and I hope the NCAA will recognize that. We had a lot of parity and I think the top five teams had 34 or 35 wins each. I don’t think a lot of people were excited to play against teams from the Southland Conference. I hope we can get two teams into regional play.”

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2- STONY BROOK.

Lost at home to Albany 4-1.

Two days ago the Seawolves beat the Great Danes 14-2, their fifth win against no losses in the series this year. Today, it all went to hell for the ‘Wolves, as they were shut down for the second day in a row. Yesterday against Maine, SB could only muster one hit. Today, they got six, but only one run. As stated above, it’s not likely these guys will get an at-large bid from the snobbish selection committee, but they should. These guys are legit… just not this week.

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3- WEST COAST NATIONAL SEED HOPES.

- Cal State Fullerton lost to Cal State Northridge 5-4.

- Oregon State lost to Oregon 4-1.

- Arizona State lost to UCLA 10-3.

It doesn’t appear as if any of these west coast powers want to host anything. The Titans, Beavers and Sun Devils all took it on the chin today, further hurting their home hosting chances. With the loss by the Beavers and the win by the Bruins, OSU and UCLA are now tied at the top of the Pac 10 standings at 17-8. ASU is one game back at 16-9. In the Big West, the Titans’ magic number is still one as they hold a one game lead on UCI with two games to play.

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DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

- ACC WEATHER.

Mother Nature did her bitchiness best to royally screw the ACC tournament. Virgina beat Miami 6-4 in a game that essentially lasted 11 hours and 24 minutes, with a 7-hour, 37 minute rain delay. Then, before the UNC-Wake game, there was another one-hour, seven-minute delay as well. Game time for that one was officially at 12:04am. (I thought there was a rule that no games could be started after midnight?… Remember when I wanted to spearhead the 12:01am game to open the 2010 season and was denied by NCAA rules?)

A pic that was tweeted from Durham Bulls Stadium a few minutes after the Miami-Virginia game was officially delayed.

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- STEPHEN F. AUSTIN

I know I should probably give all the credit to Texas A&M- Corpus Christi for scoring eight 9th-inning runs to win the game, but the Islanders’ name is too long to keep re-writing and the Lumberjacks were the higher seed and favored. Playing for their post-season lives, the Jacks entered the 9th inning with a 5-3 lead and then just crumbled, giving up fits hits and five walks and a wild pitch in the inning. Islander sluggers Caleb Marx and Jumpy Garcia both had yard calls in the pivotal final frame as TAMU-CC pulled out an unlikely 11-5 win.

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- PURDUE’s EXECUTION

In the Boilers 1-0 nip-and-tuck loss to Minnesota, PU got a man on the basepaths in every one of the nine innings and eventually stranded 12 men on the day. Still, no runs. The loss ended the Boilermakers season at 37-20. On the positive side, Purdue showed vast improvement in the 2011 season, set the school record for wins in a campaign.

Typical of their baserunning luck. Purdue's Tyler Spillner disagrees with umpire Jim Jamckson's out call vs. Minnesota.

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- ARIZONA STATE’s USUALLY SOUND DEFENSE.

The Sun Devils came into this weekend with a stellar .976 defensive percentage. But today, that got blown up as ASU committed five errors in the 10-3 landslide loss to UCLA. Those goofs resulted in five unearned runs by the Bruins, which was enough to crucify the Devils in game one of their series in Tempe. With the loss the Devs also drop a game out of first place in the Pac 10.

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- CENTRAL FLORIDA’S LACK OF CLUTCH HITTING.

In today’s 4-2 loss to Rice, the Knights out-hit the Owls 9-to-7, but managed to go just 2-for-16 with runners on base and 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position.

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Okay, we go on to Saturday, moving within less than 48 hours before the NCAA Selection Show. We’ll see if the bubble teams get more excited about their prospects, or more bummed out. Also, I hope the committeemen is catching up on all their required reading for this filling out the bracket thingee they gotta do. Hope they call me for advice.

G’night.

Pepperdine's Joe Sever seems alone on an island as he makes a huge defensive play.

Then we wouldn’t have to put up with the high-pressure, high-profile games between Texas-and-Texas A&M, or Virginia-and-North Carolina, or Oklahoma-and-Baylor, or Vanderbilt-and-Georgia or LSU-and-Mississippi State, etc. etc. The list goes on.

Friday saw a bunch of interesting games and results in college baseball. I happened to make the drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to catch highly-underrated Gonzaga’s 3-2 win over Pepperdine. Meanwhile, the Doctor of College Baseball was up to his antics again, checking in with a synopsis and pics from that highly-anticipated UVa-UNC game. Here’s a quick write-up on each.

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WHAT I SAW AT EDDY D. FIELD STADIUM TODAY.

Gonzaga got good pitching from starter Ryan Carpenter and reliever Cody Martin, who had a slight hiccup in the 5th inning, but held the Waves to just four hits and two runs to take a 3-2 lidlifting win in a key WCC series. The Zags pulled into a 1st-place tie with San Francisco as the Dons are idle this weekend.

Gonzaga starter Ryan Carpenter improved to 8-1 with a wicked-good effort.

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LINESCORE:

Gonzo – 111 000 000 – 3  8  0

P’dine – 000 020 000 – 2  4  1

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PITCHING.

WP: Ryan Carpenter (8-1)

LP: Aaron Gates (3-5)

Save: Cody Martin (11)

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HITTING.

GU:

- Tyler Chism, 2-for-4

- Royce Bolinger, 2-for-3

- Thomas Henderson, 2-for-2

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PU:

- Harrison Kain, 1-for-3, RBI

- Joe Sever, 1-for-4

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RECORDS:

Gonzaga: 30-16-1, 13-3 WCC

Pepperdine: 20-29, 5-11 WCC

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IN A NUTSHELL.

Gonzaga put up a picket fence with single runs in the first three innings and the pitching of Carpenter and Martin made it stand as they took down the Waves in a key series opening win.

Carpenter went 7.0 innings, giving up just four hits and one earned run, while also striking out nine Waves batters along the way. Martin came on in the 8th inning and didn’t allow a single hit and struck out three batters to lock up another save.

Cody Martin came on to earn his 11th save of the season.

The Zags started the game with back-to-back walks by Eric Lane and Tyler Chism, which was followed by a Bryan Moon RBI single to put them up for good.

GU also scored single runs in the 2nd and 3rd on an RBI groundout and a bases loaded walk, respectively. Those three runs were enough to secure the win as the pitching and error-less defense held on for the win.

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TWIN KILLINGS.

Pepperdine has long been known for its outstanding defense, a staple of Steve Rodriguez teams. They proved that point again today, keeping itself in the game by turning an amazing five double plays in the game, four of which came in the first six innings.

Pepperdine turned five double plays on the day to keep them within striking distance of the 'Dogs.

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GOOD STARTS.

One of the keys to today’s win for the Zags was that GU was able to get their leadoff batter on base in each of the first six innings of the game. The leadoff batters of the first three innings all came around to score, allowing for all the runs that the Zags would need on the day.

Tyler Chism led the Zags with two hits and scored the third and deciding run of the game.

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FOR THE RECORD.

I was a guest on the Richard Cross radio show from Oxford, Mississippi today and I told him that I was on the way up to Pepperdine for a game this afternoon and he asked if the Pacific Ocean was used as the batter’s eye at Eddie D. Field Stadium. In case any of you were wondering, there is no batter’s eye there. In fact, there’s not even a clump of trees used for the batter’s eye backdrop. Instead, a grassy hillside is the batter’s eye, since the Pepperdine campus is basically snugly fit into the side of a mountain. So that’s why there are such great views of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island there as well.

The Bulldogs react to pulling out a game one win at Pepperdine.

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WHAT THE DOCTOR OF COLLEGE BASEBALL SAW AT THE BOSH.

It was another big time showdown and another huge win for North Carolina as they further cemented their hopes for hosting a regional and procuring a national seed by taking down the No. 1 ranked team for the second day in a row.

It was just one of those days for Danny Hultzen, who threw deathly well again for UVa, but still suffered the loss.

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LINESCORE.

UVa – 010 000 000 – 1  5  1

UNC – 000 000 02x – 2  4  3

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PITCHING

WP: R.C. Orlan (1-0)

LP: Danny Hultzen (9-3)

Save: Michael Morin (7)

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HOW IT WENT DOWN.

Danny Hultzen was perfect for Virginia for 4.2 innings, but North Carolina eventually got to him with two runs in the 8th inning to beat UVa 2-1 and take the final ACC series of the year against the top ranked Cavaliers. A crowd of 2,941 saw the Tar Heels surprise the Wahoos and strengthen their claim for a national seed. UNC managed only four singles in the game, while UVa had five hits (two singles and three doubles), but the Cavaliers wasted three UNC errors and left 11 on base.

Carolina wasn't so sharp, committing three errors in the game, including this dropped fly ball.

Hultzen (9-3) blew through the first 14 UNC batters with nine strikeouts, three groundouts and two pop-outs before Tommy Coyle singled with two out in the 5th inning. UVa had scored its only run in the 2nd inning when Kenny Swab led off with a double, advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a sacrifice fly by Reed Gragnani.

That was the only scoring until the 8th inning, when UNC scored its only runs of the game. Ben Bunting led off with a first pitch single, advanced to 2nd on a sacrifice bunt by Parks Jordan, then moved to 3rd on a wild pitch. Chaz Frank battled in a long at-bat and eventually walked. Levi Michael then laced a single to centerfield that barely eluded a diving attempt by CF Kenny Swab, scoring Bunting and moving Frank to 3rd. Colin Moran, who leads the ACC in RBI, then had a sacrifice fly to RF to score Frank with the eventual winning run.

Chaz Frank would come around and score the game-winning run in the 8th.

UNC survived a scare in the 9th. Reliever Michael Morin induced a two-out, two-strike pop up behind 1st base by John Barr. Tommy Coyle was unable to make a difficult basket catch and Barr ended up at 2nd with a double. John Hicks then hit a hard grounder to 3rd which Colin Moran played off his chest and then fired to 1st, with Jesse Wierzbicki scooping the short hop to end the game.

R.C. Orlan (1-0) got the win in relief and Michael Morin picked up his 7th save for North Carolina.

The Heels roar their approval after the final out of the game.

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NOTES:

- Kent Emanuel pitched six strong innings for UNC, allowing only one run on two hits while striking out seven.

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- Virginia has scored only one run and managed only nine hits in the first two games of the series.

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- UNC used two freshmen (Kent Emanuel and Andrew Smith) and two sophomores (R.C. Orlan and Michael Morin) among its four pitchers.

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- Virginia left 11 runners on base, six in scoring position.

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- UNC left runners on 2nd and 3rd in the 6th and a runner on 3rd in the 7th.

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- UVa was unable to score in the 7th despite a leadoff double by Jared King.

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- UVa 2B Keith Werman batted over .400 as a freshman and sophomore but is only hitting .213 this year.

Despite getting ejected by A.J. Lostaglio earlier this year, UNC coach Mike Fox shows some respect before today's game.

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Virginia                     IP     H    R   ER   BB   SO   AB   BF    NP

————————————————————————-

Danny Hultzen…….  7.2   4     2    2     2    10    25  30   115

Tyler Wilson……..     0.1   0     0    0     0      0      1   1     2

North Carolina         IP     H   R   ER   BB  SO  AB  BF   NP

———————————————————————

Kent Emanuel……..  6.0   2   1    1    6     7   19   27   118

Andrew Smith……..  1.1   2   0    0    0     1     6    6     20

R.C. Orlan……….      0.2   0   0    0    0     0    2     2     10

Michael Morin…….    1.0   1   0    0    0     1     4    4      11

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Great job by both the Tarheels and the good doctor here. Now we move on to some other news and notes from around the country.

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– THREE UP

The best of the day in college baseball.

1- TEXAS

Augie’s boys withstood a 1:29 rain delay and a 4-1 deficit to beat Texas A&M to down the Aggies by a 6-4 count and claim at least a share of the Big 12 regular season title. Starter Cole Green dug a quick ditch for the Horns, but frosh Hoby Milner came on to get the W with 2.2 innings of no-hit relief with three Ks to improve to 6-3 and the burnt orange scored three runs in the bottom of the 6th to tie the game and single runs in the 7th and 8th to put the game on ice. For the second day in a row, the weak-armed Texas batting order was able to put dents in an All American candidate. A&M’s Michael Wacha went 5.2 innings, surrendering eight hits and four runs.

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2- STONY BROOK.

What a day it was for the Seawolves.

The ‘Wolves took two games from Albany in dominant fashion, racing off with 6-1 and 6-0 wins, to earn the America East regular season title and improve their overall record to 39-10. They also pulled the trick in the opening of Joe Nathan Field. Tyler Johnson tossed 7.0 shutout innings and Nick Tropeano carried a no-hitter into the 7th inning in the two games. Tropeano improved to 11-1 with game one’s 6-1 win and Johnson retired the first 15 batters of game two and has now allowed just one earned run in his last 32 innings on the bump.

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3- MATT SUMMERS, UC IRVINE

Threw a complete game, two-hitter in the Anteaters 12-0 win over UC Riverside. Summers ended up not issuing a single walk in the game and also struck out 10 batters to improve to 9-2 on the season, out-deuling Matt Andriese to help the ‘Eaters improve to 36-13 and 14-5 in the Big West. Jordan Leyland got off his cold streak, going 2-for-4 with 4RBI and got some help from Drew Hillman, who went 3-for-6 with 3RBI.

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HONORABLE MENTIONS.

- Creighton.

The Bluejays wrapped up their first Missouri Valley regular season crown since 2005 with a 3-1 win over Missouri State tonight. Ty Blach tied a career high with 8.0 innings pitched, striking out eight and allowing just four hits. A win tomorrow over the Bears would assure an outright title for CU. A loss means they’ll share the title with Wichita State, who beat the Jays two out of three a few weeks ago.

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- Oh, almost forgot, the Creighton crowd.

For the second day in a row, the Bluejays pulled in more than 8,000 fans at the new downtown stadium that will also host the College World Series in June. Tonight’s attendance was officially 8,737, improving the Jays season total of attendance to 103,297 fans, the first time in school history that the Jays have pulled in more than 100K in a single season. Wanna play in front of big time crowds without having to withstand two straight months of 90+ temperatures and stifling humidity? Play for the Bluejays.

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- Oklahoma’s version of the Killer B’s.

For the first time this season the Sooners came from behind to win a game despite trailing after eight innings. And who else would be the hero except the All American 3rd baseman Garrett Buechele, who hit an RBI double in the top of the 9th to tie the game at four. A batter like Caleb Bushyhead hit a sac fly that scored pinch runner Elliot Blair for the go-ahead run. Buechele wound up gathering four RBI on the night including a three-run homer early on.

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- Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

The Islanders matched their school record win total for a season by winning 5-1 over Sam Houston State to improve to 33-22 overall and 18-14 in the Southland. Todd Simko gave up just one run and six hits in 8.0 innings of work to improve to 9-6 on the year. The win pulled the Islanders into a 3rd-place tie with Southeastern Louisiana in the SLC standings.

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- Cal State Bakersfield’s Michael McCarthy.

For the second week in a row the Roadrunner ace took down a Top 20 opponent, this time being No. 20 Fresno State, in a 6-0 skunking. After giving up just two hits to No. 13 UCLA last weekend, McCarthy struck out 12 Bulldog batters and allowed just four hits to the Dogs, improving to 7-5 on the year.

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- Cal State Northridge’s Vincent Roberts.

It’s been a pretty horrid year for the Matadors, but they got a bright ray of light tonight in their 2-0 win at Long Beach State. Roberts threw the first complete game for the Mats since 2006, holding the Dirtbags to four hits along the way. His 95-pitch effort also happened to help the Matadors secure their first road conference win of the 2011 season.

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- TCU’s Jantzen Witte.

The Frog flailer went 6-for-7 and scored four runs to pace a Horned Frog offense that collected 26 hits in a 25-16 slugfest of New Mexico. He was joined by Jason Coats (4-for-6), Taylor Featherston (3-for-6, 5RBI) and Joe Weik (3-for-4).

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- Florida Atlantic’s Paul Davis.

No, not the guy that sang “Cool Night” in the 80s (sorry, had to pull that obscure reference), the Owl flinger threw a complete-game, 9-K performance as FAU downed local rival Florida International by a 2-0 count, ending the Panthers’ 17-game winning streak. The win also evened the weekend series and also knocked FIU out of 1st place in the Sun Belt.

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– THREE DOWN.

The worst of the day in college baseball.

1- STETSON

This was not good. For the second time this week the Hats took it on the chin, further harming their remote chances of hosting a regional. This time, a desperate Belmont Bruin team took them down by a 5-2 count. Since they came into the weekend with an RPI of No. 21, the Hatters really needed to sweep the Bruins. By the by, with the win, BU is still in contention for a spot in the A-Sun tournament that will be held in their hometown of Nashville. Look for a huge game three between these two on Saturday.

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2- HAWAII

Dammit!

As I said in last night’s write up, the Warriors are way better than they’re crappy RPI… but now I’m starting to lose steam in making that argument. Today, the Warriors were plastered once again by New Mexico State by an 18-8 count, which allowed for Fresno State to officially clinch the WAC regular season title. Yep, the Warriors lost their claim on the title. Thus, I’m sure their mid-80s RPI doesn’t hold any water with the selection committee. Again… dammit!

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3- LSU

As impressive as the Tigers were last night in the 17-1 bloodletting, they were just the opposite of that tonight. The Bayou Bashers blew a 5-0 lead at Mississippi State, dropping a 6-5 decision in a game they really could’ve used to sharpen up their resume. Now, with the loss, they are assured of no appearance in Hoover for the SEC tournament. That’s a big red slap to the whiskers of the Tigers.

The Bulldogs scored two runs in the bottom of the 9th, including a sprint-off RBI infield single by Jaron Shepherd with the bases loaded to cap the win and even the series.

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DISHONORABLE MENTION.

- Florida

Could the Gators be losing their grip on a national seed? As the No. 1-ranked team in the RPI, I guess it’s not bloody likely. But losing to woebegone Kentucky for the second loss of the week is pretty bad. Losing by a 14-1 slapdown is downright embarrassing. Earlier this week the Gators lost to Jacksonville 11-2. What the bloody hell is going on here?

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- Southeastern Louisiana.

No pressure here, but the Lions really needed to pull off a series sweep of last-place Northwestern State, but took a rowdy 13-3 loss in a run-rule shortened game to the Demons. SLU entered the weekend with an RPI of No. 44, but could be hurting to improve on that even with a Saturday win over NSU.

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- Southern Mississippi

The Eagles dropped a game to Rice for the second day in a row, losing by a resounding 16-2 count to the Owls. J.T. Chargois went 4-for-6 with 4RBI to pace the Fighting Wayne Grahams. The loss assures the Eagles they wouldn’t get an outright conference title as they now sit at 15-8, compared to Rice’s 16-7 mark. With their two losses here, you also have to wonder if the home regional hopes have flown the nest as well.

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- South Dakota State.

The Jackrabbits assured themselves of losing out on the Summit League title after dropping game two in today’s DH to a team named IUPU-Fort Wayne. The Mastadons (cool name) pulled out a 5-4 extra-inning win in game two of today’s DH, which left the Jacks’ a half-game behind perennial bully Oral Roberts. The Eagles will take the top-seed spot win or lose tomorrow to Southern Utah.

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Okay, two bells. Time to have head hit the pillow.

G’night.

(*Replace the words “New Orleans” and “the French Quarter” in the above paragraph. Now you get my drift.)

New Mexico State's Parker Hipp was one of the big heroes of the day.

Bizarre day in the SEC leaves a large cloud of dust in the East, of which South Carolina emerges as the frontrunner… again we emphasize that’s it’s given purely “for now” status.

Lots of other big time upsets and close shaves up and down the roster of games from Friday. If this is any indication to how the Month of May will be, we may be okay to wait a little bit longer for June to get here.

Now on to some of the goods and bads from around the country for this lidlifter Friday.

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– THREE UP

The good things to behold in college baseball today

1- ARKANSAS.

Whoa. This is big. I don’t think anybody saw the Razorbacks beating the Gators two straight here. Not at all. Tonight’s 5-3 win over the UofF assured the series win for the Hogs and a one-and-a-half game lead in the SEC West over Alabama, who lost to LSU tonight. The Hogs got to stud hurler Brian Johnson in a hurry, lacing him with five hits and four runs (three earned) after just 4.0 innings of work. And by the way, huge kudos to the golden-armed reliever Barrett Astin, who picked up his first save of the season by throwing three hitless innings of 4K relief for the Pigs. Yes, feel free to re-read that last line. That’s a head-slapper. Strong work Hogs. Strong work all the way around.

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2- KENTUCKY ACE ALEX MEYER.

Talk about using the word “stud”, did you see what this dude did? He had another monster outing, this time not waiting around to see if hes bullpen would blow the game like it did at LSU last week. Meyer threw his second complete-game shutout of the season, handing No. 1 Vanderbilt a 2-0 loss. The ‘Dores came into the weekend leading the SEC in hitting at .321 (and .337 in conference games), but tonight the Black & Gold managed just five hits and one walk off Meyer.

Offensively, the Cats didn’t get much off of Sonny Gray either, just four hits in all. But Thomas McCarthy’s solo home run in the 2nd inning was all the scoring Meyer and Co. would need. The UK defense committed no errors either.

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3- MICHIGAN STATE’S JEFF HOLM

The Spartan first baseman put the Big Green in first place in the Big 10 nearly by himself, going 3-for-4 with two home runs and a double and 6RBI in today’s 11-4 over Purdue. The two teams entered the game tied at the top of the Big 10 with identical 10-5 marks. State is now 28-14 overall and the Boilers drop to 30-14.

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HONORABLE MENTIONS

- South Carolina.

C’mon, you HAVE to mention the Gamecock’s here. With tonight’s 6-1 win over Ole MIss and the losses by Vandy and Florida, lookee here: Carolina is back to the top of the SEC East by a game over VU and a game-and-a-half over UofF.

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- New Mexico State’s Parker Hipp.

The Aggie 2nd baseman went 3-for-4 and knocked in the game-winning RBI in today’s 8-6 win over Sacramento State. Hipp, who is 8th in the nation in RBIs and leads the WAC with a .394 average, also played some lockdown defense, including a climb-the-ladder snag of a line drive. The Aggies improve to 31-14 and 6-7 in the WAC.

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- Oklahoma State.

The Pokes took down No. 8 TCU by a 6-2 count, marking their fifth win over a Top 10-ranked team already this season. OSU is now 31-13 and has won 24 of the last 27 games at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium. The Cowboys pocked Kyle Winkler as part of a 13-hit day, giving him just his second loss of the season.

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- Dallas Baptists’ Jason Krizan

The Division I leader in doubles (with 34) increased his two-bag total by four tonight as the Patriots picked up a huge 14-10 win over Texas A&M in College Station. The Pats pumped out a season-high 23 hits to even the series at a game each and also improve to 32-14 on the season.

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- Troy pitcher Tyler Ray.

The Trojan ace threw a complete game four-hitter with 10Ks and 0BBs as Troy won 7-1 vs. Louisiana tonight. Although Florida International and Florida Atlantic kept pace with wins tonight, the Trojans pushed the Cajuns three games back in the Sun Belt chase. Troy is now 16-6 in SBC play and 33-13 overall.

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- Utah reliever Tyler Wagner.

Wagner teamed with UU starter Rick Anton to toss the Utah’s first shutout of the season, taking down San Diego State 3-0 today. Wagner earned his 10th save of the season, setting a new school record for saves in a season. Wagner also tied the school record in the saves department as he now has 12.

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- Long Island U

The Blackbirds may have lost 6-1 at Monmouth today, but the bigger news is that they’ve clinched their first post-season berth since 2000 at the same time. With Wagner’s loss to Fairleigh Dickinson today, LIU will now be involved in its first Northeast Conference Tournament in 11 years. The Blackbirds are now 27-16 overall and 18-6 in NEC play.

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- Seton Hall’s Jon Prosinski

The Pirate ace threw a complete game two-hitter in today’s 1-0 win over Louisville. Along the way Prosinski struck out five and walked two while plunking one.

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- South Dakota State’s Daniel Telford.

For the second time in a week, Telford came on to pinch hit in the 9th inning and ended up supplying a game-winning RBI. Today it was a 4-3 win over North Dakota State. Last Saturday, he turned the game-winning RBI single trick in a 7-6 win over Oakland. Today’s win was the Jackrabbits’ 25th victory in their last 28 games, improving to 28-12 overall and 14-3 in the Summit, two games better than Oral Roberts.

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- East Tennessee State.

The Buccaneers won their seventh straight game with tonight’s 5-1 win at North Carolina State. With this weekend being their best chance to improve their highly-controversial RPI ranking, this is a huge lidlifter for ETSU. Derek Trent hit dinger No. 11 on the season to put the game out of reach tonight and John Long tossed a complete game four-hitter for the Bucs.

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- Texas State’s Carson Smith.

Maybe we should just save a spot on this list every Friday for this guy. The Bobcat ace threw a career high 14Ks and allowed just two hits in 8.0 innings of work as TSU beat UT-San Antonio 3-0. In doing so, he also lowered his ERA to 1.71. Jeff McVaney, the same dude that hit three home runs in a game last week, picked up save No. 7 on the year.

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- Richmond outfielder Jacob Mayers.

After sitting out 28 games with a hand injury, Mayers came back as if he was never gone, launching a 3rd-inning home run in helping lead the Spiders to a 3-0 win over No. 25Charlotte. Bret Williams improved to 7-1 after giving up just three hits in 7.0 innings of work.

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- North Carolina’s Patrick Johnson

After coming up flat in their last two weekend losses to N.C. State and Miami, the Tarheels needed a bitchin’ performance from Friday ace Patrick Johnson and got it. He struck out a career-high 12 in just 7.0 innings as UNC won 5-zot vs. Maryland.

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– THREE DOWN

The things that bring consternation in college baseball

1- TEXAS A&M PITCHING.

I’m not quite sure what to do with these guys. One day we’re glossing them silly and the next day we’re givin’ ‘em crap for playing like… well, crap. Tonight was another example of this Sybll-like team. Even with Michael Wacha getting the start on the bump, the Ags gave up 23 hits to Dallas Baptist in a 14-10, 10-inning loss. Wacha lasted just 5.0 innings, surrendering nine hits and five runs. The Aggie defense also committed three errors.

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2- MARSHALL.

That thundering plunk you just heard was the Herd blowing a big lead in an upset attempt against East Carolina. MU sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame with a 7-0 lead, then fell apart like a cheap cot. The Pirates scored two in the 8th (with the help of two MU errors), then six in the 9th (scoring five of those with two out) and got a Zach Wright home run in the 10th to push ECU ahead for good. Oh, yes, the East Carolinians won 9-8 in 10 innings.

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3- STEPHEN F. AUSTIN.

The leaders of the Southland Conference just didn’t play like that today. In their 5-1 loss at home to Sam Houston State, the Lumberjack defense committed seven errors and allowed four unearned runs. The seven errors tied the school record for miscues in a game

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DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

- The home teams in the Southern Conference and West Coast Conference.

None of the home teams in either of these conferences came away as winners, including College of Charleston and Georgia Southern, who were both on the coattails of league-leading Elon.

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- Long Beach State.

It’s not dishonorable to lose to Arizona State, 6-3. But this was a game that the Dirtbags really could’ve used a win, especially with Andrew Gagnon on the mound. Instead, the Beach gave up 10 hits and walked five Devils

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- Charlotte.

The Niners dropped out of a first place tie in the A-10 after managing just four hits on the day in a 3-0 loss to Richmond. Rhode Island takes over 1st in the 10 with its 10-4 win vs. UMass.

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- Central Florida.

The Black Knights lost badly at Florida State, 8-0, managing just four hits along the way. They also struck out 13 times today (11 to Sean Gilmartin, who improved to 8-1) and never had an answer for the Tomahawk Choppers. And keep in mind, this is a series that UCF could really use here.

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ANOTHER SHAMELESS PLUG.

While watching the Sacramento State-New Mexico State game on The Altitude Network today, game announcers Jeff Matthews and Kyle Doperalski invited viewers to Email them and tell them where they were watching the game.

So I decided to chime in and tell them I was sitting my fat ass on my couch and not going to any games today. I also told them I was wondering if Aggie coach Rocky Ward was going to eat Popeyes Chicken after the game, as he usually does.

Sure enough, about five minutes later, Kyle piped up, “We just got an Email from Eric Sorenson, saying he was wondering if coach Ward was going to eat at Popeyes after the game. I guess Eric knows Rocky pretty well. But coach will have to travel a long ways to get that coz there isn’t a Popeyes nearby in Las Cruces.”

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MY RESPONSES TO ESPN COMMENTS.

On of the more interesting aspects to this ESPN gig that I’ve been handed is that the comments section is anonymous. On my College Baseball Today page, I get all the comments and have to approve them first. Plus it includes the commenters Email address, so I can contact them directly if I want.

Though I don’t usually check back on comments too often, I’ll chime in on a few here now.

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From Week 1:

- Merrillnaise wrote:

“I’m surprised that Mark Marquess was not mentioned amongst the coaching legends.”

(The piece was asking if this would be the final go-round for these coaches. )

Actually Merrillnaise, I didn’t include Marquess on the “Mt. Rushmore of college coaches” because unlike Augie Garrido, Wayne Graham, Gene Stephenson and Mike Gillespie, I can’t see Marquess retiring after this season. Dude’s got so much energy, I could see him being in the dugout for another 10 to 15 years.

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From Week 2:

- krcook41 wrote:

“Thanks, ESPN, for covering college baseball early in the season and not waiting until the playoffs. Sorenson is a great addition.”

I think you’ve crystalized every college baseball fan’s thoughts right there. Well done krcook41. Oh, and a free shot of Maker’s for the second part.

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From Week 3:

- Brewerfan54 wrote:

“I wonder if the NCAA has ever noticed how 1-sided college baseball actually is. The southern schools have such a distinct advantage it’s almost ridiculous.”

Hmmm… must be a newbie to our sport.

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From Week 4:

- mredisonnj wrote:

“Aluminum bats = fake baseball”

This guy would probably complain about Pam Anderson’s fake boobs too.

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From Week 5:

- headedhorseman wrote:

“Ummm, that isn’t Ben Clowe in the picture. That’s Zach Jones.”

Just to let you guys know, I don’t supply the pictures or the captions for ESPN. Had I checked the comment section before now, I could’ve advised them to change it. Sorry bro.

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From Week 6:

Headedhorseman wrote:

“Correction #2: Stanford are the Cardinal, not the Trees. Our mascot is the tree, but our name is the Cardinal.”

My Gawd Headedhorseman!… You must be a boring individual. (And you DO realize that I like to use additional monikers for teams, knowing full well Cardinal is the official nickname?)

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From Week 7:

IAmJonasJones wrote:

“ASU’s season has been a rollercoaster ride??? Based on what??? They haven’t lost a series.”

First off, one question mark is enough. secondly, the rollercoaster comment is based on the off-field issues they’ve dealt with including the specter of the NCAA post-season ban that is still a possibility and the injury to Cory Hahn. NOW do you understand? Think outside the box people.

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From Week 8:

twack34 wrote:

“Gonzaga is good but don’t forget to mention that they lost 2 of 3 to the Aggies. Cmon now.”

Look smarty-farty, if I’m talking about a team’s good wins on the year, I don’t have to mention all their losses as an aside to the record every time dipstick. Jesus. And does losing two of three to the Aggies make the Zags a bad team? You’re warped man.

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From Week 9:

krcook41 wrote:

“Since LSU tanked immediately after playing Fullerton and starting conference play – any thought that this reflects more on a down year in the Big West?”

That’s a good point, and yes, I’ve been surprised at how “down” the Big West is. Actually, a good portion of the West is struggling this year too. Though the Pac 10 is better than they are rated, it still has plenty of pot-holes to their road this season.

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From Week 10:

Josh1035100 wrote:

“Heat relief was one of your big bonuses to the new stadium? Really?! I was in Omaha last year for the first week of the CWS, attending six games, and hardly ever broke a sweat. Late June in Rosenblatt was like late February in Florida. Put on some sun block, a hat, and man up. Omaha heat doesn’t even compare.”

Oh yeah Josh? Did I just imagine this in my head:

Idgit.

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From Week 11:

robertloggia16 wrote:

“Wow? Texas A&M was a good call… Derelict offense for Texas? You’re a moron.”

Going into this weekend, UT’s offense was hitting .264. Yep, still derelict there mate.

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THE RAVEONETTES… again

Some of you were wondering, so in case you wanted to hear/see a little bit more about the Raveonettes, the band I went to see at The Troubadour last night, here’s a video for one of their better songs, called “You Want the Candy”. There’s a number of other videos of theirs on You Tube, if you want to check them out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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G’night.

I spent my Friday night at UCLA, watching to see if the Bruins could rebound from last week’s series loss at Stanford and finally give their former All American candidate Gerrit Cole some run support.

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WHAT I SAW AT JACKIE ROBINSON STADIUM TONIGHT.

It was another showdown of college baseball royalty on the mound. Sam Gaviglio vs. Gerrit Cole. I couldn’t wait. Then… pfffffft! Another pitcher’s duel fizzled in front of my eyes.

Despite his getting the win on the hill, Oregon State's Pat Casey didn't seem all that crash-hot at Sam Gaviglio's effort tonight.

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LINESCORE:

O.S.U. – 001 060 000 – 7  11  1

UCLA – 101 300 000 – 5   8   1

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WP: Sam Gaviglio (8-1)

LP: Gerrit Cole (4-5)

Save: Tony Bryant (7)

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Top Hitters.

OSU:

- Carter Bell, 2-for-5, 3RBI, triple

- Ryan Dunn, 2-for-5, RBI

- Jared Norris, 1-for-4, RBI, double

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UCLA:

- Beau Amaral, 3-for-4, triple

- Dean Espy, 2-for-4, 3RBI

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RECORDS.

OSU: 31-8, 11-2 Pac 10

UCLA: 22-15, 10-6 Pac 10

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IN A PARAGRAPH.

In what amounts to a wild understatement, neither Friday ace was very sharp tonight. OSU’s Gaviglio gave up six hits and seven (?) walks in his 6.0 innings of work. UCLA’s Cole was figured out right away by the Beaver batters, getting laced for 10 hits and three walks in his 4.1 innings of work. But with a 5-1 lead, the Bruins seemed to be in control of things. Then came that horrid 5th inning nightmare. That’s when the Orange and Black started the inning with back-to-back doubles from Danny Hayes and Kavin Keyes, followed by a walk to Jared Norris to load the bases. After a short conference on the mound, Carter Bell cleaned up the bases with a hustling triple to the wall, pulling the Beavers within one. Ryan Dunn tied the game two batters later with a bloop single that scored Carter from 3rd base. Ryan Barnes gave OSU the lead for good with a deep sac fly to center field, which scored Dunn from 3rd base. UCLA was held off the scoreboard from there on out.

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RELIEVERS.

Maybe Michell Beacom and Matt Boyd should’ve been named the starters here tonight. Both relievers did a pretty solid job coming out of the ‘pen. Beacom, who has become a real force for the Bruins, went the final 4.2 innings and gave up only one hit and one walk while striking out four. In the other dugout, OSU’s Boyd teamed with Tony Bryant to hold the Bruins to zero runs on two hits, no walks and no threat. Boyd wound out up with his 7th save of the season.

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BEWARE THE CONFERENCE ON THE MOUND.

In an odd happenstance, UCLA head coach John Savage made two visits to the mound to check on Cole and each time it was met with dubious results. In the 3rd inning, the pitch immediately after Savage’s visit was an RBI double by Jared Norris which put Oregon State on the board. Then, two innings later, with the bases juiced, Savage went to the mound to talk with Cole and the infielders. On the very next pitch, Bell cleared the bases with his triple, pulling the Beavers within one.

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NO WONDER OREGON STATE WON.

Maybe it was an omen, but during the national anthem, the Trabuco Canyon Little Leaguers joined the UCLA players on the field. The name of the team from the Trabuco Canyon Little League that took part? They were announced as the “Trabuco Canyon Little League’s North Carolina Tarheels.” And you know how the Beavers handled the Tarheels in Omaha, right?

Members of the "North Carolina Tarheels" run off the field while assuring UCLA they wouldn't beat Oregon State tonight. Thanks cruel irony.

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STRANDED.

Both teams have to be kicking themselves over missed opportunities. For the game, OSU stranded 10 baserunners on the basepaths and UCLA stranded nine. Cole got out of bases-loaded jams in both the 2nd and 3rd inning without much damage. After giving up a single run himself, Gaviglio ended up leaving the bases loaded with Bruin baserunners in the 3rd as well.

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PICS

Some more images from tonight’s game.

Oregon State's Sam Gaviglio unleashes.

UCLA's Gerrit Cole uncorks.

Carter Bell paced the Beavers with a bases-loaded triple that sparked the 5th-inning rally.

UCLA right-fielder Jeff Gelalich gives chase on a pop-up in foul territory, to no avail.

Gelalich slams into the not-so-heavily-padded wall down the right field side.

Dean Espy got an infield hit off the foot of Sam Gaviglio here. Despite the sharp liner off his instep, Gaviglio would stay in the game, no worse for wear.

Coach Savage wasn't all that crash-hot about umpire Jason Venzon's balk call on Bruin reliever Mitchell Beacom (35) which scored a run for the Beavers.

Tony Bryant picked up save No. 7 on the season with his 9th inning appearance tonight.

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Now on to some other stuff from around college baseball tonight.

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– THREE UP.

The good points of college baseball today.

1- AUGIE.

The zen guru of college baseball reached the big 1,800-win milestone tonight with the Longhorns’ huge 5-0 blanking of rival Oklahoma in their Big 12 opener. Through Cal State Fullerton, Illinois and Texas, the wise one has never failed to win a national title in any decade he has coached. Hmmmm… Texas improves to 32-10 on the season and 14-5 in Big 12 play.

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2- THE VALLEY OF UPSETS.

Cal State Bakersfield and Hawaii pulled off big time stunners over No. 17 UC Irvine and No. 16 Fresno State in the San Juaquin Valley tonight.

The Roadrunners rallied from a 4-1 deficit by scoring four runs in the bottom of the 9th and then beat the Anteaters on an Andrew Latourneau RBI single in the bottom of the 10th inning. After a pair of mid-week losses to Kansas State, the Runners improve to 25-13 on the season.

Meanwhile, up Highway 99, Hawaii increased its lead in the WAC to a game-and-a-half with a shocking 5-4 10-inning win at Fresno State. And they did so despite Bulldog ace Greg Gonzales mowing them down to the tune of 11Ks in just 5.0 innings of work. The winning run occurred in the 10th inning on a wild pitch.

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3- TEXAS STATE’s CARSON SMITH.

The lanky righty struck out 13 batters in tonight’s 5-2 win over McNeese State. Smith’s 13-K effort set a new career high for the junior hurler and is also the second-most in school history. In all, Smith went 8.1 innings and gave up just four hits as he improved to 6-3 on the year.

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HONORABLE MENTIONS

- San Francisco’s Matt Lujan.

Lujan didn’t have a monster game by any stretch, but he did pitch well enough to pick up the win in today’s 11-7 victory over LMU. With that decision, Lujan became the school’s all-time wins leader with his 23rd career W.

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- Rutgers pitcher Tyler Gebler.

Threw his third complete game of the season as the Scarlet Knights upset Connecticut 8-3. The sophomore righty went the distance, giving up nine hits and three runs to improve to 3-4 on the season. Oh, and the Knights also handed Matt Barnes just his third loss on the season by lacing him with five earned runs in 5.0 innings of work. D.J. Anderson went 2-for-5 with 5RBI to pace the Knights offense.

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- Virginia.

The Cavs obliterated Boston College today as Danny Hultzen and Shane Halley combined on a one-hit, 17-0 shutout. This marked UVa’s 13th shutout of the year, an ACC record. Steven Proscia also broke the school RBI mark with his 168th run driven in as part of a 3-for-6 day.

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- Vanderbilt.

The Commodores beat Tennessee 10-1 in front of a season-high 3,645 fans. It was the third sellout in the last four home games for the Black & Gold.

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- Dallas Baptist’s Landon Anderson.

The junior hit for the cycle in a 21-1 win over Mississippi Valley State tonight in Big D. Anderson ended the game going 5-for-6 with six RBI and started off the game with a leadoff home run to set the tone for the rout.

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- Miami University’s Mac Thoreson.

The sophomore ace for the Redhawks threw the first complete-game shutout of the season for MU, downing Bowling Green in a 1-0 white-knuckler in Oxford tonight. Thoreson allowed just five hits and struck out four to improve to 4-2 on the season. Thoreson also did not surrender a single walk in the game.

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- San Diego’s Calvin Drummond.

Hasn’t been a lot to cheer about for the Toreros this season, but tonight’s starting effort by Drummond was worth trumpeting. The Friday ace went 7.0 innings and gave up just two hits and zero walks in a 10-0 win at St. Mary’s tonight. Drummond is now 3-4 on the season as USD actually found some offense, gaining 10 hits on the day.

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- Clemson’s Dominic Leone.

The Tigers took down No. 9 Georgia Tech 4-2 thanks mostly to Leone, who went 8.0 innings against that tough-as-nails Jackets’ lineup and gave up just two hits and two walks, along with gathering 10 strikeouts to improve his record to 3-1.

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- Cal State Fullerton’s Keegan Dale.

This guy was buried deep deep deep on the Titan depth chart prior to this week. Tonight, in the dramatic 12-6 come-from-behind win over Pacific, the freshman stepped in at shortstop for Richy Pedroza and went 3-for-4 with 3RBI to lead Fullerton to a high-scoring win over the Tigers. His single down the left field line in the 5th inning scored two runs, the game-tying and go-ahead tallies. Where the hell does Dave Serrano find these guys?

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- Florida International’s Mike Martinez.

The five-hole hitter was just 2-for-4 tonight in the 9-6 win over South Alabama, but both of his hits were home runs and he accounted for 6RBI on the night to improve the Panthers to a record of 26-16 and 11-8 in Sun Belt play.

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- Texas-Arlington’s Jordan Vaughn.

Vaughn had five hits in tonight’s 5-4 win over Stephen F. Austin. That might sound great and all but the impressive part is that he hit the game-winning two-run double in the 16th inning to account for the winning margin.

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– THREE DOWN.

The bad points in college baseball today.

1- MIAMI.

The Hurricanes committed seven errors in the field tonight, which led to Florida State’s 6-5 win over Miami in Coral Gables. And almost not surprisingly, the winning run by FSU was scored by a wild pitch in the top of the 9th inning. Yuck! I loved Miami SID Bryan Jerrod Harvey’s opening line to their press release after the game, “It’s already a tall task having to face one of the nation’s hottest pitchers in a rivalry game. It’s another when you hand away a season-high seven errors and hope to still have a chance.” Harsh dude.

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2- PITCHING IN THE STANFORD-ARIZONA STATE GAME.

What’s goin’ on with the pitching in the Pac 10? Not only the game I was at tonight where Gerrit Cole and Sam Gaviglio were rusty as hell. But out in the desert, on a Pac 10 Friday night, the Cardinal and the Sun Devils combined for 31 hits and 22 runs as State beat Stanford 12-10. In fact, starting pitchers Mark Appel and Brady Rodgers combined to give up 20 hits. Rodgers would get credit for the win to improve to 6-2 on the season. Appel drops to 3-5.

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3- OKLAHOMA.

The Sooners just couldn’t get it done vs. Taylor Jungmann tonight. The Sooner bats were held to four hits and a walk while striking out nine. The Big Red wasted an outstanding effort from Sooner starter Michael Rocha, who threw his fourth complete game of the season as the Sooner D allowed for four unearned runs.

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DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

- Texas A&M pitching.

I never thought I’d say something negative about the Aggies pitching staff, but here we are. The Aggies have one of the best staffs in the country, but gave up 10 runs and 12 hits, along with issuing six walks and five hit batsmen in a stunning 10-9 loss at Missouri. John Stilson, one of the best aces in the country went 6.2 innings, giving up nine hits, six runs (all earned), two walks and one hit batsman. The Tigers rallied from a 6-1 deficit, scoring seven runs in the 7th and two in the 9th to get a jog-off win.

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- Georgia Tech’s Mark Pope.

The Rambling Wreck ace suffered just his second loss of the season as apposed to nine wins after giving up 10 hits and two walks in 6.0 innings of work in a 4-2 loss at Clemson. It actually could’ve been much worse since the Tigers stranded 10 baserunners on the night.

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- Dallas Baptist’s Landon Anderson.

Yep, he deserves some consternation as well. After hitting for the cycle vs. MVSU in game one today, the Patriot leadoff man ended up going 0-for-6 in game two of the DH. DBU would end up winning 17-14, despite Anderson’s lack of production and despite the Delta Devils’ nine runs in the 1st inning. Wow.

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- Yale.

What a potentially devastating day it was for these guys. The Bulldogs entered the weekend tied with Dartmouth atop the Rolfe Division of the Ivy League, but today they dropped a pair of games to unheralded Brown by scores of 6-3 and 4-0. Dartmouth doesn’t open weekend play until tomorrow against last-place Harvard. Keep in mind this is the final weekend of play in the Ancient Eight.

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Thanks for checking out my stuff here today and I hope you enjoyed it.

G’night.

ASU's pressure haunted Justin Jones and the Cal Bears today.

I didn’t get to write much more today since I’m going to a concert in San Francisco with some friends tonight, so sorry ’bout that. Then again, with the crappy weather throughout the country, most of today’s scheduled games seemed to get cancelled anyway. Oh, and if you want to add your own “Three-Up, Three-Down” go ahead. The comment section is all yours.

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WHAT I SAW AT EVANS DIAMOND TODAY

No drama this time. The Devils didn’t need 17 innings to beat Cal today as they kept pace with Pac 10-leading Oregon State via a smooth as silk 5-0 win at Cal. And as ASU S.I.D. Randy Policar wrote, “after a 17-inning marathon victory on Thursday, Kramer Champlin delivered just what the doctor ordered as he threw a complete game shutout.”

LINESCORE

ASU – 020 002 010 – 5  9  0

Cal – 000 000 000 -  0  5  1

ASU's Kramer Champlin tossed a beauty of a game in the win over Cal.

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WP: Kramer Champlin (6-1)

LP: Justin Jones (5-3)

Save: None.

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Top Hitters

ASU:

- Riccio Torrez, 2-for-4, RBI, double

- Devan Morrero, 2-for-4, double

- Zack MacPhee, 1-for-3, double

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Cal:

- Darrel Matthews, 2-for-3

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RECORDS:

ASU: 27-9, 10-4 in Pac 10.

Cal: 24-11, 9-5 in Pac 10.

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IN A NUTSHELL.

There were no hairy moments today as ASU cleaned up nicely after yesterday’s 17-inning mess, beating Cal in a two-hour, 11-minute 5-0 breeze on a dark, cold, windy day at Evans Diamond.

Champlin, the Devil starter, was very efficient on the hill, going the distance with five Ks, one walk and about 57 groundouts, or so it seemed. ASU did a great job of keeping men off the basepaths as the Bears only got those five hits, one walk and only stranded five base-runners all day. Champlin used a high-80s fastball and supreme location on his off-speed stuff to keep the Bears at bay.

Cal’s Justin Jones didn’t have such a bad outing himself, holding a State team to just nine hits, despite them coming in with a .315 team average. Jones didn’t have any strikeouts against the aggressive Devils, but only relented two walks and pitched well enough to give his team a chance.

All the scoring ASU would need came in the 2nd inning as Deven Marrero singled, Austin Barnes doubled and Andy Workman singled in the first run. A batter later, catcher Xorge Carrillo hit a deep sac fly that scored Barnes to put the Bears in a 2-0 hole early on.

The Devil Dogs scored two more runs when Zack MacPhee started off the frame with another double and came around to score a batter later when Riccio Torrez doubled to the wall. Austin Barnes came back to knock Torrez in from 3rd on a deep fly ball to center field.

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TALKING WITH DAVE ESQUER.

After the game i got the chance to say hi to the Cal skipper and get his feelings on the game and the re-instatement of the program.

- On his feeling of today’s game overall.

“We haven’t been beating soundly at any point this season so far, but that was a game where they just simply outplayed us today.”

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- On the effort of pitcher Justin Jones, who threw a complete game in the loss:

“His breaking ball just wasn’t his best pitch today. Very few outs were from his curveball. Jones was doing a decent job with his fast, change and cutter, but he wasn’t able to hold them down and shut them out like he normally does to people.”

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- On what ASU’s Kramer Champlin was doing to keep his team at bay:

“Those first-pitch outs were getting us. We couldn’t get a leadoff man on base and that was a big key. He was like a surgeon today, cutting us up. We couldn’t get any back-to-back hits to build off of him.”

Dave Esquer's back... and so is the tradition-laden Cal baseball program.

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- On if his team has played any different since the program was reinstated:

“No, not really. I don’t think we’ve lost our edge at all. It’s like a lot of people would say that having the program in limbo was our edge and now we don’t have that. But thankfully, our guys’ approach has been the same all along and I’m proud of them for that.”

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- On what put the program back in good graces for reinstatement:

“Each time we were knocked to the mat, we had a real strong contingent of people that just weren’t going to take no for an answer, trying to figure out all the different ways to attack the problem. Obviously the big thing was the multiple-year pledges that the administration was finally able to accept. It wasn’t just ‘How much money can you bring to the table in one year?” it was people saying they could give money not just this year, but for the next five years.”

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- On if there has been any more talk of getting those promised stadium improvements that he talked about in the fall:

“Well, we’ve been working with some cell companies about fronting the money for us to build towers and double them up as part of our lights system, so we’re looking at that in different ways. Nothing else has been said about completing the rest of the stadium though.”

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PICS:

A few more images from today’s Sun Devil win.

ASU could've made the score a lot worse if not for a few base-running faux pas. Here, Riccio Torrez is caught between 1st and 2nd.

... Deven Marrero is caught in a rundown between 2nd and 3rd.

... and Xorge Carrillo was nabbed at home, trying to score from 3rd on a flyout to left field.

It's good to see the parent company's banner still prominently displayed at Cal games. And it will be for years to come as well.

Xorge Carrillo offers congrats to his starting pitcher Kramer Champlin after the final out. A job well done bro.

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Okay, lemme go rock-n-roll now. You guys have a good night.

In what had to be the most intense game of the day, Oklahoma State’s Dane Phillips busted the Sooners psyche into a million pieces with a bottom-of-the-9th dagger of a jog-off home run to win game one of the Bedlam Series weekend edition, 8-7.

A screen grab of Dane Phillips jumping on home plate after his game-winning home run. Sorry, the game wasn't televised in HD... obviously.

The Sooners had things in control with a 5-2 lead in the 5th inning behind their crafty ace Michael Rocha. With two outs in the inning and a lazy pop fly headed to the outfield, it was easy-peazy. But the ball inexplicably got bobbled and hit terra firma.

This outfield gaffe led to Okie State's six-run 5th inning.

Suddenly everything changed. The Pokes would go on to gather four hits, a walk and got the help of another Sooner error to score six runs in the frame. Instead of a slightly comfortable lead with Rocha cruising, the Cowboys took a 7-5 lead.

The pain didn’t end for OU. After working their way back to a tie in the 6th inning, the Sooners still seemed to be ready to pounce back into the lead, but couldn’t threaten again. The stake to the heart came in the first pitch of the bottom of the 9th when Dane Phillips, who came into the game hitting .407, parked a Bobby Shore offering to the deepest part of the park.

Game over. Oklahoma State eight, Oklahoma seven. With the win, the Cowboys have now won 10 of 12 games and five straight overall.

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I spent part of the day taking in one of the better mid-major matchups in a showdown of West Coast Conference leaders, Gonzaga and LMU. So I grabbed my camera, got on my bike and pedaled over to the field next to Hank Gathers’ House.

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WHAT I SAW AT PAGE STADIUM TODAY.
It was a great pitcher’s duel between GU’s Ryan Carpenter and LMU’s Jason Wheeler, which drew a lot of strikes, whiffs and professional scouts. In the end, both pitched well but neither figured into the decision as Gonzaga staged a 9th-inning rally to squeeze past the Lions.
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THE PROGRESSION.
Zags – 002 000 003 – 5 9 1
Lions- 000 003 000 – 3 6 1
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WP: Mark Phillips (1-2)
LP: Ryan Hawthorne (0-2)
Save: Cody Martin (7)
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Top Hitters.
GU:
- Cameron Edman, 3-for-4, HR, 3RBI
- Eric Lane, 2-for-4
LMU:
- Matt Koch, 1-for-3, 2B, RBI
- Bret Dahlson, 1-for-3, 2B, RBI

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IN SUMMARY.
It was a matter of the big inning that made the difference in this Friday battle of West Coast Conference leaders in Westchester today. The deciding factor was that the Bulldogs put together two big innings and the Lions only had one.

The Zags looked dead in the water going into the 9th inning, down by a 3-2 count and having to face LMU’s relief ace Ryan Hawthorne, who came in with eight saves and having given up just one earned run all season long. But an uncharacteristic error on what would’ve been a routine groundout to the first batter of the 9th allowed Billy Moon to reach base and opened the door for a nightmarish final frame for the Leos.

After Moon reached on that fateful error, Royce Bollinger cut a single into right field, which was followed by a monster shot just to the right of the blue monster in left field to put the Zags up for good and slump the shoulders of the Lions.

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LOYOLA’S LEAD.
LMU had taken the lead in the 6th by scoring three runs off of GU’s Carpenter, who started the inning issuing a walk, gave up a ripping RBI double by Matt Koch and then plunked Shon Roe. The Lions would take the lead two batters later on an RBI single by Joe Vierra and then took a 3-2 lead on a well placed sac bunt by Zac Fujimoto that changed momentum completely around.

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THE STARTERS.
As mentioned above, both starting pitchers were on their game for the most part, maybe a few small hiccups but nothing major for the two big prospects. Ryan Carpenter went 7.0 innings, giving up six hits and three runs while striking out four and Jason Wheeler went 7.2 innings, giving up seven hits, two runs and striking out five. Both showed pretty good control toward the plate as Carpenter threw 55 strikes in his 86 pitches and Wheeler tossed 70 strikes in his 103 pitches.

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THE DECIDING FRAME.
Loyola has been a really solid defensive team this season, coming into the game with an experienced, .970 defense. It’s too bad that the only error of the game the Lion defense committed came in the 9th inning, giving Gonzaga a small fissure which became a crevasse. A Royce Bollinger single put two men on with no out. Then came THE big blast. Cameron Edman kept his hot bat boiling with a sweet-swinging blast to left-center that put Gonzaga up 5-3.

In the bottom of the 9th, Bulldog relief ace Cody Martin came on to close out the game with nearly unhittable offerings, going a swift three-up, three-down. It was Martin’s eighth save of the season as he has now allowed just three earned runs in 33.2 innings this year.

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QUOTES
LMU COACH JASON GILL:

- On if he thought his team would be able to rebound from a tough loss like this:
“If you keep things in perspective, all losses are difficult. I don’t think you can hang your hat on one inning because sometimes that one inning is in the 6th when you lose a game, and if you play it by that kind of emotion then you’re gonna be pouting in the dugout in the 6th inning as opposed to after a game. So you’ve gotta keep it in perspective.”

- On how big this series is:
“It’s a big game in a big series, but it’s still out in front of us to win. So it’s difficult to lose a game like that on a Friday just like it’s difficult to lose 11-2 on a Friday. For a kid that’s 18-to-22 it’s difficult to digest and turn it around. I’ve been doing this for 15 years, so I’ve learned to wear it, digest it and turn it around.”

- On what he said to the team after the game:
“We lost by two runs, but we set the table in three of the first four innings by putting runners in scoring position, so there were a lot of opportunities for us to capitalize on that. I thought we played the heck out of defense, until that error in the 9th. We were locked-in on defense all day and I’ll take that. I guarantee if we play defense like that all weekend, it’s gonna be a one-run game and hopefully we come out on top the next two games.”

- On the biggest difference between his teams’ big success to this year compared to last year’s struggles.
“Oh, it’s the pitching. No doubt. New bats or no new bats our ERA last year was over seven and this year it’s under three. It’s been a remarkable turnaround and I’ve said from the get-go that coach (Ted) Silva has a big part of that and the reality of it is that the players bought in and are a big part of it too.”

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GONZAGA COACH MARK MACHTOLF
- On his teams’ never-say-die attitude:
“This is typical of them in terms of mental toughness. The talent is decent but I think the one thing is our toughness late in games. We keep battling and both teams did a good job of bunching their hits, we were lucky enough to have them bunched up at the end.”

- On how big it was
“On the road, they’re all huge. When you only play 21 conference games, boy you’ve really gotta be ready every day. It was a great way to set the tone for the weekend, but they’re a good team and I’m sure they’ll come back battling us again tomorrow. We know we’ve got to come to the park with our energy again tomorrow.”

- On having a big horse like Cody Martin in the 9th inning of games.
“Well, it changes the way you play the game, that’s for sure. It’s like a drug almost because you can feel good about a guy coming in like that and closing the game. He’s been good all year for us. There might’ve been a time or two where he was a little amped up and wasn’t locating as good as he can, but for the most part he’s been as good as we’ve seen.”

- On his decision to have Royce Bollinger and Cameron Edman swing away in the 9th instead of bunting Billy Moon over after the error:
“Well the old adage is you play for the tie at home and a win on the road. And I’m not really that big on bunting anyway, and since Royce is so good against left handed pitching, I decided not to bunt Billy Moon over and it paid off. And then Cameron just got a good fastball to his and he put the barrel on it.”

- On if his team has the advantage the rest of the weekend:
No, not really. We’re pretty equal, we used our bullpen and they used their bullpen. We used our closer, they used their closer. I think it’s pretty even.”

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PICS

LMU's Jason Wheeler was able to keep the Zags in check for 7.2 innings.

Gonzaga ace Ryan Carpenter was putting up mostly zeroes as well. And the Brian Wilson-like beard is a nice touch too.

Shon Roe scores the go-ahead run for LMU in the 6th inning. But it wouldn't hold up.

When Jason Wheeler got pulled in the 8th, things got dicey for the Lions.

LMU's Matt Lowenstein and GU's Royce Bolinger have a look at Cameron Edman's game-winning home run.

... all of which made Edman give out a Billy Idol-like Rebel Yell once he reached home plate.

Cody Martin then came on in the 9th to slam the door with some wicked wieldings.

Meanwhile, on top of the home run screen, this he's-bigger-than-he-looks hawk kept getting dive-bombed by the handful of crows that didn't want the majestic bird around.

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I gotta hit the rack soon for an early flight, so tonight’s Best O’ the Day will be brief.

– THREE UP

1- SOUTH CAROLINA’S MICHAEL ROTH AND MATT PRICE
Carolina dropped Vanderbilt, 3-1 behind their stud arms.
Roth, the Gamecock ace lefty, held Vanderbilt to three hits in a 7.2 inning performance that saw him gather eight strikeouts and one earned run. He was backed up by Price, who struck out all four batters he faced for his 11th save.

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2- ARKANSAS’ LATE-INNING HEROICS… AGAIN.
For the fourth straight game, the Razorbacks came back with some late-inning drama, beating Mississippi State 6-5 with a three-run 8th inning. A two-run Kyle Robinson dinger and a game-winning RBI single by Tim Carver made the difference as the UofA improves to 25-8. The Hogs have also now won seven straight games. Nolan Sanburn also picked up his 7th save of the season with a 1-2-3 top of the 9th.

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3- ARIZONA’s JOEY RICKARD.
The Wildcat leadoff man and CF led the Cats to a 5-4 win at No. 23 UCLA.
Rickard hit a three-run bomb off of Bruin All American Garrett Cole, finished the game with four RBI and, according to the Wildcat release on the game, made “several sensational defensive plays” in the outfield to lead the Cats to the win.

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HONORABLE MENTION:
- Georgia Tech’s Mark Pope.
Threw a complete game one-hitter in the Jackets’ 5-1 win over Wake Forest. It was Pope’s fourth complete game of the season as Tech improved to 26-9 and 13-3 overall. It was the first one-hitter for Tech since Kris Wilson pulled the trick in 1997.

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— THREE DOWN.

1- FLORIDA STATE’S OFFENSE.
FSU loses at Virginia Tech, 3-1.
The Seminoles only have themselves to blame here. Sean Gilmartin gave them all they needed on the mound, giving a complete-game four-hitter with seven Ks and walking just one. But the Seminole offense got six hits and earned six walks, but ended up stranding 11 baserunners (compared to Tech’s three) and never could get the clutch hit. That lack of punch at the right time led to Gilmartin taking on his first loss of the season.

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2- NORTH CAROLINA.
Lost at North Carolina State, 5-4.
The Tarheels scored four runs in the 2nd inning to take a 4-2 lead, but then went limp the rest of the game. Like the Noles, the Heels couldn’t get a clutch hit either, going so far as to get men on 1st and 2nd with one out in the 7th and with no outs in the 8th, but couldn’t score in either frame. Although, the pitching of Cory Mazzoni, D.J. Thomas and Chris Overman combined for 11 strikeouts and held the Heels to five hits.

The Pack's Cory Mazzoni kept the Tarheels in for most of his stint, as State pulled the upset.

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3- EASTERN MICHIGAN.
The former leader of the Western Division of the MAC lost to the formerly winless Akron Zips, 5-2.
The Eagles have now lost four straight MAC games and six of their last seven overall. But this was pretty bad, as they also committed four errors, surrendered three unearned runs and helped Akron improve to a 7-25 record with the win.

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Gotta quit while I’m behind.

G’night.

This could be the best team in the country that nobody knows about.

Go ahead and guess… we’ll give you 15 seconds for your computer to reload here.

If you said Cal State Bakersfield, give yourself a high five. Okay, I take it back, you’d look stupid doing that. Then again, any of those pollsters and one-or-two-man ranking systems out there should probably feel a little dunce-capish for not including the Roadrunners too. Just sayin’.

Surprise. Dwight Yoakum's favorite college baseball team is in full bloom now.

Today, I got a chance to see what they were all about. And they’re all about good, I tells ya’.

I didn’t feel like fighting the impossible Friday traffic through Orange County and its parade of mini-vans to make the drive to Fullerton for the Titans-Anteaters matchup, so I instead headed to the Porn Valley and checked out the Bakersfield-Cal State Northridge game.

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WHAT I SAW AT MATADOR FIELD TODAY.
While everybody and their ugly cousin is all agog over beauty pageant darlings like Florida, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma, Arizona State, Texas A&M, all of whom lost today by the way, Cal State Bakersfield has quietly, and successfully, toiled in anonymity up there in Buck Owensland. Today, the ‘Runners jumped all over a pretty good Cal State Northridge team and boat-raced them to the tune of a 15-5 whitewashing.

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Bakersfield – 514 000 500 – 15 19 1
Northridge – 020 100 020 – 5  6  1

WP: Mike McCarthy (4-2)
LP: Justen Gorski (3-4)
Save: None.
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Top Hitters.
CSUB:
- Ryan McIntyre, 4-for-5, 2RBI, 2SBs
- D.C. Legg, 2-for-4, 3RBI, HR
- Oscar Sanay, 4-for-6, 2RBI
CSUN:
- Tommy Simis, 2-for-3, 2RBI, HR
- Justin De Marco, 1-for-4, 2RBI
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IN SUMMATION.
Okay, since I compared them to teams like Florida, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma, etc., don’t worry, I’m not really saying that Bakersfield will win the national title this year. In fact, they’re far from it… wait, I take that back, ‘coz they’ve already beaten Arizona State and South Carolina. But you get my drift here. They’re good and they showed that good side of them again today in Northridge.

Here’s a sampling of things to come: In the first inning leadoff man Ryan McIntyre singled, then stole second, then stole third. That’s what you call a tone-setter there people. Martin Medina came up two batters later and sliced a lively double to the gap, scoring McIntyre. After an Oscar Sanay single, D.C. Legg stepped up and smashed a wind-driven yard call beyond the left field wall making the score 5-0 before anyone had the time to sneeze, thus the rout was on.

The Roadrunners were never threatened from there, scoring another single run in the second inning and then adding four more plate-stomps in the 3rd inning to put the Blue & White ahead by a hearty 10-to-2 score that never got threatened again. Especially not with the more-than-capable mound work they got today. More about that here…

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EXHUMING McCARTHY.
(My apologies for the obscure R.E.M. reference there) CSUB starter Mike McCarthy went the distance today, giving up seven hits and striking out eight and never really seeming to be out of control. The 6′3″ righty threw a hearty display of varied pitches, mostly eschewing the 90mph power stuff and just keeping the Matadors off-kilter instead. McCarthy threw 118 pitches in all and never strayed far from the strike zone, throwing a staggering 82 strikes in the game, all with Tina Turner-like movement.

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YOUNGER BUYS THE BEER ROUND.
Of Bakersfield’s nine starters in the batting order, 6-hole hitter Kevin Younger was the only hitter NOT to knock in an RBI on the day, despite scoring twice himself as part of a 1-for-3 day. In fact, six of the nine starters had at least two ribs on the day, led by D.C. Legg, who knocked in three of his own.

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300
Like the great gladiator King Leonidas, Bakersfield head coach Bill Kernan, a modern-day renaissance man in his own right, earned his 300th win with the 15-5 public drowning of the Matadors today. Including his 1989-to-1995 stint as Cal State Northridge’s head honcho, Coach Kernan’s won-loss mark is now 300-230-3 in his nine-plus seasons at the helm.

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WHAT COACH KERNEN HAD TO SAY.
I caught up with the former New York playwright before the game to discuss a few things about his third team at the helm of the all-new CSU Bakersfield program. It’s not a long-ass Playboy-type of interview or anything, it was a very seat-of-the-pants-like kind of thing that I did with him mere minutes before the national anthem was played over the p.a. But enjoy.

Bill Kernen and his staff are coming out of the shadows and building something special in Bakersfield, California.

Me:
This being your third year, is this year’s success any kind of surprise to you?

Coach Kernen:
Well I knew year three of the program would be THE year. When I was here (at Northridge), it was our third year where are team finally figured everything out and we went to the Fresno Regional and came within three outs of going to Omaha. So we’re at the same point here with our team, not to say we’re going to come close to making it to Omaha, but we’re at the same point of progress. So we’re excited about where our team is at.

Me:
You’ve had big wins over Arizona State and South Carolina, do you think that has gone to your teams’ head?

Coach Kernen:
I don’t think so. What those wins have done is given our guys affirmation that, ‘Hey, we can not only play with these guys, we can BEAT them too.’ We still don’t put a lot of stock into those wins because we got a lot of big games ahead of us and we can’t lose sight of things. We know we can’t let that be our biggest achievement of the season.

Me:
Your team’s ERA is 2.06 coming into today, how does that sit with you?

Coach Kernen:
I certainly wouldn’t have expected it to be this good, so it’s something our staff is certainly happy about. But we don’t expect it to stay there. We’ve got a lot of good teams ahead, Irvine, Kansas State, Fresno, UCLA… But pitching like we have gives us a lot of confidence going into those big games we’ve got ahead of us.

Me:
Your RPI is currently right smack-dab in at-large territory. Does your team talk about that? Or made aware of that?

Coach Kernen:
Well it’s hard to ignore that right now, with all the projections saying what they’re saying. We’re definitely glad to be in the discussion. And we knew the schedule that we’ve played could put us in this position. But again, we’ve got so much baseball ahead of us, our guys can’t get caught up in all that. As a staff, we think our guys have their minds in the right place.

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A COUPLE MORE PICS.
I didn’t take too many pictures today, mainly because the netting and chain-link fences at Matador Field were really tough to shoot through. So here’s the few decent shots I got.

The two stars of the game: 3Bman D.C. Legg, who hit a three-run jack in the 1st inning, and Pitcher Mike McCarthy, who threw a complete-game 6-hitter.

The only real bright spot for the Matadors came when Tommy Simis (left) hit a two-run home run over the left field wall, scoring teammate Drew Muren (right).

Bakersfield could also play some stealth-like defense with (from left to right) 2Bman Oscar Sanay, CF Andrew Latourneau and 1Bman Martin Medina.

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Okay, on to today’s good and bad type of stuff around college baseball.

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– THREE UP

1- CAL’s ADMINISTRATION.
I hate to give these schmucks any appreciable amount of credit, but according to an ESPN release the baseball program has ONCE AGAIN… been reinstated by the administration. Yes, the money is back in line with what the athletic department deems enough to keep the baseball program back in good standing.

I feel really good for coach Dave Esquer. He’s the one that has had to endure this horrible roller-coaster of here today, gone tomorrow, here the next day again from the Sybil-like Berkley administration. Poor dude. He’s one of the best college baseball coaches in the country and he’s had to withstand this yo-yo treatment. I wouldn’t be shocked to see the dude take off for greener pastures in the off-season.

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1A- Mark Marquess, Stanford.
His quote over the announcement was echoed throughout college baseball.
“That’s fantastic. Everyone in college baseball is thrilled about saving this prestigious program with 120 years of a rich tradition. We are their biggest rival and we are thrilled they are back where they should be.”

Eloquently put coach. I dig it man.

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2- DANNY HULTZEN, VIRGINIA
Okay, let’s just say right now, barring some bizarre circumstance, like having a secret Philippine mistress that has a 5,000 pair of shoes collection, he’s gonna win numerous national Player of the Year awards. No doubt. Tonight, against Georgia Tech, the Wahoo stud struck out 12 Tech batters and spread out seven Jacket hits in 8.0 innings of work. Okay, okay, he DID give up one earned run. So sue the dude! (Ha.) Hultzen improved to 7-0 on the season and got one inning of relief from Branden Kline to help shut down the Bees in the 6-2 win at Russ Chandler Stadium.

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3- OREGON STATE’S SAM GAVIGLIO (again)
The junior flinger extraordinaire tossed his third complete game of the season, striking out six Sun Devil batters and scattering – and I mean scattering – nine hits and walking just one batter to help the Beavers to a 5-3 win over Arizona State. Oh come on, you can’t expect anyone to hold the Devils completely hitless or anything. Those boys have talent oozing out beneath their finger nails, so for Gaviglio to hold them to three runs in 136 pitches is very noteworthy. By the way, the double-play combo of shortstop Ryan Dunn and Tyler Smith (the Nos. 8 and 9 men in the batting order) led the OSU attack as both went 2-for-3

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HONORABLE MENTIONS.
- UC Irvine.
While a lot of people, including this blank-pated writer you’re reading here now, questioned the Anteaters’ vitality after their crap-job they did at Gonzaga two weeks ago where they scored one run in 27 innings on offense, the ‘Eaters calmly went out and slapped around the Titan pitch staff to the tune of 16 hits, 15 runs, 6 walks and a lot of bruising of egos. UCI went on to win 15-3 in game one of the Orange County donnybrook. Let’s see what game two gives us.

- Vanderbilt’s Sonny Gray
The Commodore ace got into a real pickle against Alabama, loading the bases in the 4th inning of a back-n-forth affair with the No. 21 Crimson Tide. But the junior struck out the next two batters and got the third one to meekly bounce out to second base, keeping VU up by a 4-2 count and leading them to a dominating 11-3 win.

- Mark Etheridge’s Tweet about Sonny Gray.
About the above scenario, the great Etheridge wrote in 140 characters or less, “Sonny Gray loaded the bases with no outs and then struck out 2 and got a weak 4-to-3. Cat with a mouse.”

Follow that cooly wry sumbitch at “sebaseball” on Twitter. Do it now or forever regret your ever being born on this planet.

- Kent State’s Andrew Chafin
As my good bud Chris Webb of BuckeyeStateBaseball.com tweeted today, “Ho hum, a 13K, no-walk outing for Andrew Chafin. Allowed 7H, 1ER in 8.2 inn.” The East Division leading Flashes end up winning 4-2 over West Division leading Eastern Michigan, to improve to 18-10/6-1.

- The pitching of Kansas State.
Facing one of the more daunting lineups in the country, starter Kyle Hunter threw 7.2 innings of shutout ball and got save No. 9 from closer James Allen as the Purple Cats beat Oklahoma 2-0 in game one of the series. It was the first shutout of OU by the Wildcats since March of 1990. OU managed just five freakin’ hits on the day man. That’s pretty impressive for the Wildcats, considering the Big Red entered the weekend with a .337 team average.

- South Carolina’s second straight shutout.
Sophomore righty Colby Holmes went 7.0 innings, striking out a career-high seven Volunteer hitters as the Gamecocks shut out Tennessee for the second straight night with a 2-0 count. Christian Walker’s two-run home run in the 6th inning supplied the only runs of the game.

- Troy’s Tyler Ray.
The Trojan ace improved to 7-0 tonight with 6.2 innings of five-hit ball in the 4-0 blanking of Florida International. In case you’re wondering, Garrett Wittels went 0-for-4 on the night. So the Trojans put the clamps on everyone.

- Mississippi State.
Beat Florida 7-5 to improve to 6-2 on the year vs. ranked opponents. Well, I would write more, but you ‘ll read more about it in the “Three Down” you see below…

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– THREE DOWN

1- FLORIDA’s HUDSON RANDLE PROVING HE’s ACTUALLY HUMAN.
Okay, you’re not going to believe THIS one. The Gator ace actually gave up nine hits and six runs (all earned) in just 2.1 innings of work in tonight’s 7-5 loss at Mississippi State. Wow… the dude IS human afterall. Who knew? Randall falls to 5-1 on the year as MSU matched the Gators hit-for-hit tonight and got better pitching, particularly from closer Caleb Reed, who picked up his fifth save of the season, going 2.0 innings and giving up just one hit. Damn, man!

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2- TCU’s BULLPEN AND DEFENSE
Probably more of the former than the latter here. The Horned Frogs were dropped by once-lowly New Mexico 10-3, by allowing all 10 of the Lobo runs in their last four at-bats. Also, the Lobos were able to lay down four bunt singles on the day. But the big blow was Luke Campbell’s 8th inning two-run double that put UNM up for good.

UNM's Luke Campbell and TCU head coach Jim Schlossnagle watch his 8th inning two-run double take flight.

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3- LSU’s NOT-SO-CLUTCH OFFENSE.
Man, the Tigers could’ve taken a huge game one win tonight at Baum Stadium in Fayetteville. Well, that is, if not for coming up snake eyes in so many clutch situations during the game. The Bayou Bashers got Hog starter D.J. Baxendale to throw 86 pitches in the first four innings, but had exactly ZERO runs to show for it. In the first four innings alone the Tigers would end up stranding nine runners on the basepaths, six of them in scoring position. Oh, and in case I didn’t mention it above, LSU lost at Arkansas 2-0 tonight, despite out-hitting the Razorback 10-to-6. Another great outing for frosh starter Kurt McCune, who went 7.2 innings, striking out nine and giving up just four hits.

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DISHONORABLE MENTIONS
- Recent College World Series participants.
Let’s look at Friday like this, recent CWS alums like Florida, Arizona State, Oklahoma, North Carolina, TCU, Cal State Fullerton, LSU and Southern Miss all took it on the chin tonight. Like the Sports Illustrated cover jinx, maybe there’s some kind of down side to making the Field of Eight in the last two years?… oh screw it, I don’t believe in jinxes. And neither should you. You’re an adult now.

- East Carolina’s offense.
We knew there were issues here. I mean the Pirates came into this game hitting just over .280, ya’ know. But tonight, in front of nearly 3,000 of their closest friends, the Pirate order could come up with only four hits and one run against the Owl arms. But worse yet, ECU also managed to somehow strike out 18 times against frosh starter Austin Kubitza and senior closer Tony Cingrani. 18 man?! Dang.

- Cal.
Okay, we’ve gotta bag on the Bears a little bit today too. On the same day that their program was announced to be saved from the Turk after all, the Bears go down and lose 5-4 at Arizona. I’m sure that was hardly painful to the euphoria that coach Dave Esquer and his program feels overall.

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SPECIAL HONORABLE MENTION.
- To the Foo Fighters.
Tonight, while I was trying to stay awake and finish this column, the Palladia channel (No. 567 on DIRECTV) was playing the Foo Fighters’ documentary “Back and Forth” followed by their epic concert from last summer in Wembley Stadium in London. It kept me awake and motivated.

When they waved to the Wembley Stadium crowd for the last time, the Foo Fighters were telling me it was time to call it a night as well. Thanks guys.