Day 4 Games
Ole Miss Rebels vs Texas Tech Red Raiders
As we have seen time and time again throughout this tournament, pitching really won the day. Ole Miss starter Christian Trent was great going 8 strong innings, scattering 6 hits but giving up no runs. Texas Tech starter Ryan Moseley was pretty much his equal going a career long 7 and 1/3 innings giving up one run that wasn’t earned. The fireworks didn’t come until late in the game though when pinch hitter Holt Perdzock gave Ole Miss the 1-0 lead in the 7th inning. Tech fought back to tie it up after a couple of stolen bases and a sac fly. Then John Gatlin was the hero, getting a bloop walk off single just a few days after his grandmother pased away. I’d say this celebration by the Ole Miss football team was well earned:
Virginia Commadores vs TCU Horned Frogs
This game will go down in CWS history. The 15 inning marathon game was the longest game time wise in CWS history at 4 hours and 54 minutes. This was a game for power arms to show off and we saw that with Virginia’s Nick Howard and TCU’s Brandon Finnegan and Riley Ferrell. The game ended on a Daniel Pinero sac fly but the real talk in this one was about the ballpark after the 3-2 UVA win. There is always talk about the park being too big but it was really ignited by TCU’s coach Jim Schlossnagle when he said this:
“It’s hard to get upset with your offense when you’re facing that type of pitching, and I’ve got to be careful here before I say some things about this ballpark that I’ll regret,” Schlossnagle passionately said. “It’s just a travesty what we’ve done to college baseball. But it’s very impressive by Howard, very impressive by Ferrell.
“But yeah, I mean the pitching was smothering,” he continued. “Then you add in the park and the conditions, and it’s not a good recipe for scoring.”
There is talk of moving the fences in 10 feet after seeing when a more “live” ball does over the next couple of years. In my opinion they need to move the fences in 25 feet.
Day 5 Game
Texas Longhorns vs UC Irvine Anteaters
This game will be remembered from this tournament for two big reasons. 1) Texas shortstop C.J. Hinojosa hit what turned out to be the game winning home run in the top of the 7th inning. Thats a big deal because of all the previous talk about hitting home runs in this park and it ends up being a shortstop who isn’t know for power hitting one. 2) The world met Abby, the girl who ran on the field and did it for the Vine.
The thing that will get overlooked in this game is the outstanding pitching performance turned in by Texas starter Chad Hollingsworth. He went 8 and 1/3 innings strong without giving up a run. Longhorns Head Coach Augie Garrido was in a great mood after the game and during the post game presser even joked that 4 guys fainted in the dugout after CJ hit that homer. Check out the full audio below. UC Irvine is done for the season now but Texas will play Vanderbilt at 2 pm CST on Friday.