Titans, Frogs, FSU, LSU Earn Spots In College World Series
Cal State Fullerton, TCU, Florida State and LSU wrapped up their NCAA baseball super regionals on Sunday and clinched spots in the College World Series.
The Titans, Horned Frogs, Seminoles and Tigers will join No. 1 national seed Oregon State, No. 7 Louisville and Texas A&M in the CWS, which starts Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska. Wake Forest or Florida will fill the last spot Monday.
Fullerton locked up an 18th CWS appearance, and second in three years, with a 2-1 win over Long Beach State in Game 3. Sixth-seeded TCU reached Omaha for the fourth straight year and fifth time since 2010 with an 8-1 victory over Missouri State in Game 2.
Florida State beat Sam Houston State 19-0, the largest margin of victory in a super regional, to complete a sweep. The Seminoles are in the CWS for the 22nd time and first since 2012.
Fourth-seeded LSU swept Mississippi State with a 14-4 win in a game that had three rain delays totaling more than an hour. The Tigers, who have won 16 straight games, are heading to Omaha for the second time in three years and 18th overall.
The second game of the Wake Forest-Florida super regional in Gainesville, Florida, was suspended in the bottom of the fifth inning because of rain. The game will resume at 1:04 p.m. EDT Monday with the Demon Deacons leading 5-4. Third-seeded Florida won the series opener Saturday.
In Long Beach, California, Fullerton's Colton Eastman pitched one-hit shutout ball over seven innings with eight strikeouts and four walks. The Titans managed only two hits against four pitchers. They scored their runs in the fourth inning when John Sheaks hit the first two batters with pitches and Hank LoForte singled both of them in. The Dirtbags' only run was unearned, coming on a passed ball in the sixth.
Long Beach State, which won five of six against Fullerton in the regular season, was held without an earned run over the last 26 innings of the series.
TCU's Evan Skoug, who hit the go-ahead two-run homer in a 3-2 victory in Game 1 on Saturday, and Elliott Barzilli went deep in the Horned Frogs' win in Fort Worth, Texas. Brian Howard struck out 11 and limited the Bears to four hits in 7 1/3 innings.
The Frogs have won all five of their games in the national tournament. They're the fifth program in 30 years to make four straight trips to the CWS.
Taylor Walls homered twice and Quincy Nieporte and Kyle Cavanaugh also went deep in the Seminoles' rout of Sam Houston State in Tallahassee, Florida. Drew Parrish, Cole Sands and Andrew Karp combined to strike out 15 and hold the Bearkats to four hits.
The Seminoles' 19-run margin of victory broke the super-regional record set when Louisville beat Oklahoma State 20-2 in 2007.
Sam Houston State issued 12 walks and committed three errors.
"If you lose the battle of the freebies with them, it can be a miserable night, and that's what happened tonight," Bearkats coach Matt Deggs said. "Those guys did a great job of capitalizing."
LSU scored six runs in the fifth inning to erase a 4-3 deficit against the Bulldogs. Caleb Gilbert relieved struggling LSU starter Jared Poche' in the third inning. Gilbert gave up singles to the first two batters he faced, then retired 17 of the next 18 before Hunter Newman came on to pitch the bottom of the ninth .
A look around the country:
HOME TEAM TURNABOUT
Home teams are a combined 14-2 in the eight super regionals, and six of the seven decided so far have been won by the host. Fullerton was the only visiting team to take a series.
Last year, only three hosts won super regionals, and they combined to go 6-13.
GAME 2 JINX ENDS
TCU came into Sunday with an all-time record of 5-1 in Game 1s of super regionals but 0-5 in Game 2s. The Frogs finally broke through with their win over Missouri State.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"The West Coast is still the most powerful place to play baseball for me and it sucks that we only get two Big West teams and we get stuck playing each other (in super regionals) because it would have been super fun playing in Omaha. Us and Long Beach teeing it up in Omaha, that would be epic." — Fullerton coach Rick Vanderhook.
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