What a day (college baseball)

[MJ4H]

I attended Arkansas' two games today in the college baseball tournament. Arkansas, who is hosting a regional as a #1 seed, lost to #2 seed Wichita State yesterday in 11 innings, so had to defeat #3 seed Missouri last night and Wichita State twice today to advance to the Super-regionals. Well today's two games with Wichita State were outstanding. In game 1, it was back and forth. Tied at 6 in the bottom of the 8th, the Shockers capitalized on some defensive mistakes and raced out to a 9-6 lead. In the top of the 9th, Arkansas needed 3 runs to keep it going. They managed to cut it 9-7 and then got the bases loaded with 2 outs. With 2 strikes against him, Brady Toops hit a grand slam, propelling Arkansas to an 11-9 game 1 win. Game 2 was a tight affair which Arkansas eeked out 4-3 while being out hit something like 11-4, but Wichita State had 6 errors in the game. What a spectacle. I don't see how half the team didn't get injured in the pile up in the infield after the final out.

With one regional left undecided, there are currently 6 SEC teams in the Super Regionals (out of 16). The only SEC team that did not win their regional is Ole Miss. Tennessee is still alive in the one regional that is undecided, so the SEC could have 7 teams out of 16. Very impressive I'd say. SEC teams that advanced today:

Arkansas
LSU
South Carolina
Vanderbilt
Georgia
Florida

[ahbrady]

The SEC is always impressive in baseball. I'm just glad that Arkansas has caught up to the rest of the SEC. Does anyone know when they announce the sites for the super-regionals?

[JonInMiddleGA]

ahbrady - those are already announced AFAIK (except possibly for those cases where #1 seeds were eliminated in both regions).

Ah, here we go from http://www.ncaasports.com/baseball/mens/story/7398218

The following four best-of-three super regionals will be played Friday, June 11, Saturday, June 12, and Sunday, June 13 (if necessary). The four winners will open College World Series (CWS) play Friday, June 18.

Vanderbilt (45-17) at No. 1 Texas (53-13)
Florida St. (45-21) at No. 8 Arkansas (43-22)
Arizona (33-24-1) at Long Beach St. (39-19)
Georgia (41-21) at No. 4 Georgia Tech (44-19)

The following four best-of-three super regionals will be played Saturday, June 12, Sunday, June 13, and Monday, June 14 (if necessary). The four winners will play their first Omaha games Saturday, June 19.

East Carolina OR UNC Wilmington at No. 2 South Carolina (48-15)
Tulane (41-19) at Cal St. Fullerton (40-21)
Texas A&M (42-20) at LSU (44-17)
Florida (43-20) at No. 3 Miami (Fla.) (47-11)

[Ksyrup]

They've already been announced:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=1817144

Arkansas hosts FSU. I don't really follow college baseball at all (except to note how FSU does), but I'm sure the fact that FSU isn't hosting will be a big deal here. That said, FSU had its worst season in years and I'm shocked they made it this far.

[IMetTrentGreen]

arkansas coach needs to be fired. there is no excuse for letting someone throw 202 pitches in 2 days. thats just awful

[Ksyrup]

Beat me to it!

[MJ4H]

The SEC is always impressive in baseball. I'm just glad that Arkansas has caught up to the rest of the SEC. Does anyone know when they announce the sites for the super-regionals?

Arkansas has always been pretty good in baseball. 4 CWS appearances and 2 super-regionals in the last 3 seasons.

[digamma]

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day all around.

Clemson beat Georgia 10-9 in their first game on a late Grand Slam. Georgia then scored 2 in the 9th and 1 in the 10th to beat Clemson 7-6 in the deciding game.

Cal State Fullerton had to beat upstart Pepperdine (who had a losing record entering the tournament) twice to make it to the Super Regionals.

FSU got a scare from UCF (losing the first game) before pounding them in the second game.

Vandy won its first post-season baseball game in twenty-something years on Friday and then marched through the Charlottesville regional for easy advancement.

This weekend's games are just as promising. Should be a great weekend of baseball--and a lot of it is being covered on ESPN.

[MrBug708]

UCLA managed a good performance considering we've always sucked in baseball. We kicked the crap out of Oklahoma, so I'm happy.

[Arles]

I think my Wildcats were a bit of a surprise. They were under .500 for the beginning of the season and getting worked by everyone. But, in the last 6-8 weeks, they have looked like a legit series team. Going to South Bend and finishing 3-0 against UC Irvine, Kent and Notre Dame is a good start. Still, that Long Beach team is tough.

[Radii]

Georgia (41-21) at No. 4 Georgia Tech (44-19)


Niiiiice. go tech! I never follow college baseball too closely, but I did go to a bunch of games when I was a Tech student, they were a lot of fun, and I always keep up with the CWS, good stuff!

[Hammer755]

I was disappointed that Rice got knocked off by Texas Southern, then eliminated by A&M. I couldn't make it to the regionals this weekend, but was planning on going to the Super next weekend, which will now be held in Baton Rouge.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Niiiiice. go tech! I never follow college baseball too closely, but I did go to a bunch of games when I was a Tech student, they were a lot of fun, and I always keep up with the CWS, good stuff!
Yeah, it ought to be interesting http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/images/smilies/wink.gif

Honestly, I think both teams/schools would have preferred to draw anybody else in the superregional round instead of this matchup.

As UGA's coach said when the brackets were first revealed, I think the turnout for the game at Turner Field (28,836, 2nd largest in NCAA history) pretty much doomed both teams to this pairing.

[dawgfan]

Grrrr. My Huskies yet again can't advance beyond the regionals. This marks the 3rd straight year and 6th time since 1992 they've made the post-season but have been unable to advance. Closest they got was 1 win away in 1994 but were eliminated by the Gaciaparra/Varitek/Payton Georgia Tech team.

[ahbrady]

Arkansas has always been pretty good in baseball. 4 CWS appearances and 2 super-regionals in the last 3 seasons.

I'm really not trying to start an argument, but I think it's been a while since they've been very good. They were great in the 80's, but since then, at least until this season, they've been fairly average. I don't follow college baseball at all, and I'm far from an expert on Razorback baseball, but I dug up some of their history because your response made me wonder. It had the Razorbacks finishing in the top 25 only twice since 1990. Their record in the SEC tournament is the fourth worst. I realize that the SEC is an amazingly tough conference, and that is why I stated that I'm glad they are catching up to the rest of the SEC.

Thanks to Jon and ksyrup for the info. I'm ashamed that I didn't know that Arkansas is hosting a super regional. :(

[MJ4H]

You are entitled to your opinion.

[tucker342]

I love the College World Series:)

By far the most fun I've ever had a baseball game was the 1998 championship game between Arizona State and USC, which USC won 21-14. Damn that was a fun game.:)

[SackAttack]

Arkansas has always been pretty good in baseball. 4 CWS appearances and 2 super-regionals in the last 3 seasons.

Emphasis mine. I'm just curious...how is this possible? ;)

[MJ4H]

Only the second of those two accomplishments occured in the last 3 seasons.