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Sunday - June 1, 2008

Regionals - Day 3 summary

Needless to say, I'm kinda down on the whole Regional thing this evening. Texas did win the first elimination game of the day, surviving a 9th inning rally to beat St. John's 4-3. Alas, the Horns could not mount their own late-inning rally to beat Rice later in the day, falling 4-7 in the night cap.

In the post-game press conference, Coach Garrido described the season as good for the first part as the team went 16-6, then pretty lousy as the team lost their way in the middle of the season, and then very good again at the end of the season. Rice just out-pitched and out-hit the Horns in the final game.

If you think about it, it's it absolutely stunning that there were 6 errors in the final game of the year and not one was committed by Texas. The fact that the Rice pitchers limited the Horns to 6 hits really did make all the difference in the world. If the Horns had been able to get just one or two more hits, they likely would've won the game. Baseball really is a cruel sport sometimes.

Sigh...

And, how did things go elsewhere? Let's see...

Houston beat Illinois-Chicago to earn their way into the Championship game in College Station. And, then they managed to beat the Aggies this evening. So, they will meet again tomorrow evening to determine who'll be headed to Houston to play Rice in the Super Regional. I still think it sucks that they paired those two Regionals.

Elsewhere, the Big 12 did not fare well. Oklahoma State eliminated TCU in the first game but then fell in 10 innings to Wichita State in the second game. Nebraska was eliminated in the first game of the day in Lincoln; UC-Irvine won that Regional and now heads to Baton Rouge to play LSU. Missouri was also eliminated in the first game of the day by Ole Miss who went on to lose to Miami in the late game. Oklahoma beat Vandy in the first game of the day but they lost to ASU 0-12 just a few minutes ago.

That also brings us up-to-date on the rest of our old SWC conference-mates that were still in the tourney at the start of Day 3 (Houston and TCU).

A summary of the entire field (in seeding order):

  1. Miami moves on to the Supers.
  2. North Carolina moves on.
  3. Arizona State moves on.
  4. Florida State will play Tulane (#3 seed) tomorrow night; winner moves on.
  5. Cal State Fullerton: UCLA (#2 seed) is the unbeaten team and is tied with CSF 1-1 in the 2nd as I type (CSF has men aboard in the bottom and is threatening). If CSF wins, the teams play again tomorrow night.
  6. Rice moves on.
  7. LSU moves on.
  8. Georgia will play Georgia Tech (#2 seed) tomorrow night; winner moves on.
  9. North Carolina State moves on.
  10. Nebraska lost; UC-Irvine (#2 seed) moves on.
  11. Texas A&M will play Houston (#3 seed) tomorrow night; winner moves on.
  12. Stanford will play Pepperdine (#2 seed) tomorrow night; winner moves on.
  13. Oklahoma State lost; Wichita State (#2 seed) moves on.
  14. Long Beach State lost; San Diego (#2 seed) and Fresno State (#4 seed) play tomorrow night; winner moves on.
  15. Coastal Carolina moves on. Coastal Carolina, by the way, scored 47 runs in the three games they played this weekend.
  16. Arizona (#1 seed at Michigan) moves on.

For those of you that don't generally follow the CWS, please note that there will not be a re-seeding of teams at any time. You're put into the tournament at a certain spot in the bracket and those spots do not change. If, for example, Bethune-Cookman (#64 seed in the tourney, by virtue of being the #4 seed in the #1 Regional) had somehow managed to win the Miami Regional and then the following Super Regional, they would be the #1 see at the CWS. Very odd, if you ask me. But, nobody asked me. I just report the facts. Although, I guess you could argue that if a #64 team did manage to get to that point, they just might deserve a #1 seed, eh? Heh.

And so it goes...

UPDATE. I forgot to post the All Tournament Team for the Houston Regional. So here you go:

Posted by Joanna at 11:23 PM