Well we are down to the final 4 teams in the College World Series, and two of those teams are facing elimination today. Arkansas takes on SEC-rival LSU and must beat LSU twice to get into the championship 3 game series. Arkansas staved off elimination Wednesday night as Woodlands native Brett Eibner hit a 2 strike 2 out 2 run game-tying homerun in the 9th to tie Virginia up at 3. They then held off Virginia 4 straight innings as the Wahoo's put the winning run on 3rd base four straight innings, including loading the bases with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th. Arkansas took the lead in the 12th on an RBI double by Andrew Darr who battled off for nine pitches before hitting a groundball down the 3rd base line to give the Razorbacks the lead that they would hold onto to win 4-3.
LSU has only had to play two games thus far in the CWS and cruised to a 9-1 victory over Arkansas and also beat Virginia in the opening game 9-5. They have a high powered offense led by two homerun hitters in Ryan Schimpf and Blake Dean. They have 8 players in their starting line up that are hitting over .300 and 6 that are hitting over .315. They are also a team full of speed led by their right fielder, as well as wide out for the Tiger football team, Jared Mitchell, who stole 36 bases on 45 attempts. They also have a star studded pitching staff led by Louis Coleman who went 14-2 on the year with a 2.68 ERA followed up by Anthony Ranaudo who went 10-3 with a 3.03 ERA. The Tiger bullpen is locked down by closer Matty Ott, who led the club with 16 saves.
In the second game of the night we have a rematch of Tuesday night's stellar comeback between The Texas Longhorns and The Arizona State Sun Devils. The Sun Devils must also beat the Longhorns twice to avoid elimination and get into the championship series. The 'Horns aren't known for their offense as they play small ball and station to station baseball, but are displaying some power in Omaha. When these two teams met Tuesday night it was supposed to be a battle of the 2 teams ace pitchers. It was far from that as Texas pitcher Chance Ruffin was chased out before getting an out in the 3rd trailing 6-0. After the 3rd inning, Texas coach Augie Garrido brought his team together and told them to just go out and have fun, and think of all the highlights that will be on SportsCenter for the many nights to come. That inspired the Longhorn offense as they struck for 6 runs in the 4th, capped off by a 3 run homerun by catcher Cameron Rupp. After giving up 6 runs, Sun Devil ace, Mike Leake was chased before getting out of the 4th inning. Leake was often said to be the best pitcher in the nation outside of Stephen Strasburg, going 15-1 on the year with a 1.30 ERA, but seemed to be in a daze and didn't have his best stuff, nor did Chance Ruffin. The game remained tied at 6, until Rupp stepped into the box again in the 7th inning, and sent one out to the crowd again for his 2nd homerun of the game and gave the 'Horns a 7-6 lead. Texas would go on to push 3 more runs across in the 8th and hold on for a 10-6 win.
It should be an exciting day as they are hoping to get the tarp off the field in the next few minutes and get game 1 underway.
As for my predictions, I think LSU is just too much for Arkansas and will play only the 3 game minimum in order to reach the championship series. As for game two tonight, I think the Sun Devils will force Texas to play again Saturday with the losing team going home. I feel that Texas has too much in the end, and the Devils will run out of pitching, setting up a LSU vs Texas best-of-three series, with the Tigers taking the crown home
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