NCAA Baseball Tournament

[Spy Fox]

I'm not a major college baseball follower myself, but I thought this deserved a thread.

The Super Regionals are next weekend, with the winners of each three game series moving on to the eight team College World Series in Omaha.

Here are the matchups:

South Carolina @ North Carolina

Rice @ North Carolina State

UCLA @ Cal State Fullerton

Oklahoma @ LSU

Louisville @ Vanderbilt

Indiana @ Florida State

Mississippi State @ Virginia

Kansas State @ Oregon State

The elimination game last night in the Chapel Hill Regional between the Tar Heels and the FAU Owls was one of the most dramatic baseball games I have seen, and I only started watching on TV in the eighth inning! There were just a lot of remarkable things about this game, enough that I wanted to share it since I figured very few would have seen it. Here's what went down:

UNC, the #1 overall seed, was facing Florida Atlantic in an elimination game, the winner of which would move on to face South Carolina. FAU had already beaten UNC 3-2 the night before to stay alive in the tournament and force one more game. UNC had not lost two games in a row all season. Things looked pretty safe for the Tar Heels as they were up 6-2. But FAU's Corey Keller hit a solo HR to lead off the 9th inning-- his 5th of the weekend after hitting only 4 HR all season! Then FAU rallied to score another and load the bases, all against UNC's ace Kent Emmanuel, who was in his second inning of relief after throwing 124 pitches on Saturday. Emmanuel got pulled with 2 outs, the bases loaded, and a 6-4 lead with a Super Regional berth on the line. FAU's Taylor Rocklein hit a GRAND SLAM off the new reliever to give his team a 8-6 lead, and of course the celebration by the Owls was absolutely insane.

So at risk of becoming the second #1 national seed in history to fail to advance past the regional round, UNC trailed by 2 in the bottom of the 9th. (Interestingly, the only previous #1 seed to be eliminated in the first round was Vanderbilt in 2007- a team starring David Price and Pedro Alvarez.) But Carolina's 2b Mike Zolk tied the game with a 2-run single in the bottom of the 9th. The score was 8-8 until FAU hit a three run home run in the top of the 12th to lead 11-8. Carolina rallied back to 11-10 in the bottom of the inning and had the bases loaded. Zolk hit another single, which scored the tying run but not the winning run, as the Owls' LF threw out the 12th run at home. UNC's 9th and 12th inning rallies both happened off of FAU closer Hugh Adams, the all-time saves leader in the Sun Belt conference. After Carolina held FAU scoreless in the top of the 13th, they loaded the bases again in the bottom of the inning and finally ended the game on a walk off single by 1b Cody Stubbs.

[Spy Fox]

Here are the eight teams playing in the College World Series next week in Omaha:

Group 1

North Carolina

NC State

UCLA

LSU

Group 2

Oregon State

Mississippi State

Louisville

Indiana

The winner of Group 1 will face the winner of Group 2 in a best of three series to determine the national champion.