It's been a good year for chalk in the NCAA Baseball Tournament so far. Most of the Regionals are already wrapped up, and we will only have four or five Game Sevens. Here's where the tournament stands (national seeds in parentheses):
Knoxville Super Regional: (1) Tennessee v. (16) E. Carolina or Evansville
Tallahassee Super Regional: (8) Florida St. v. (9) Oklahoma or Connecticut
Charlottesville Super Regional: (12) Virginia v. Kansas St.
Super Regional Four: (4) N. Carolina or Louisiana St. v. W. Virginia
Lexington Super Regional: (2) Kentucky v. (15) Oregon St. or Cal-Irvine
Athens Super Regional: (7) Georgia v. (10) N. Carolina St.
Clemson Super Regional: (6) Clemson v. (11) Oklahoma St. or Florida
College Station Super Regional: (3) Texas A & M v. Oregon
Super Regional Four will be played either Chapel Hill, N.C. or Baton Rouge, La., depending on who wins their game today.
We have the Eric Bowl at 11 A.M. Central, with East Carolina hosting Evansville for a winner-take-all showdown.
ReplyDeleteExciting! I dated an ECU grad for a little while, and I have a cousin who once was awarded U of E employee of the year, so, yes ... Eric Bowl!
ReplyDeleteBecause this was an Eric Bowl, I invoked the principle of no live-blogging. So now I report that the EVANSVILLE PURPLE ACES, the number four seed in the Greenville Regional, stunned East Carolina in one of the best college baseball games you will ever see. Final score: Evansville 6, E. Carolina 5.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteEvansville wins the Greenville Regional and advances to play Tennessee in the Knoxville Super Regional.
ReplyDeleteEric, is this the biggest win in U of E history?
ReplyDeleteFor probably most fans, it will be regarded as such, given that it came at the highest level of the sport. In my world of Evansville, this win still ranks (significantly) behind the five Division II men's basketball championships (including undefeated 1965). It might even fall behind the 1982 Midwestern City Conference men's basketball championship that advanced the Purple Aces into their first Division I NCAA tournament (and came so soon after the plane crash).
DeleteAnd now I seem to be getting a message from Dad for us to not forget the football team's wins in the first two Refrigerator Bowls. Those were a very, very big deal to him, but I always thought his opinion here was skewed because he was wrapping those memories with his first blind date with Mom, for a September 1948 football game in Reitz Bowl, which is where the first two Refrigerator Bowls were played in December 1948 and December 1949.
In the bottom of the 6th, Florida leads Oklahoma State 4-2.
ReplyDeleteOregon State beats Cal-Irvine 11-6, and the Beavers are headed to the Super Regional in Lexington to take on Kentucky.
ReplyDeleteFlorida upsets Oklahoma State 4 to 2 and the Gators become the fourth Classic SEC team to win a Regional.
ReplyDeleteAfter one inning in Chapel Hill, UNC leads LSU 2 to 1.
ReplyDeleteIn the bottom of the 5th, LSU leads 3-2. Huge crowd in Chapel Hill for this game, just like there was a huge crowd in Greenville for the East Carolina game. I'm starting to believe that a lot of young people are going to remember sports in the 2020's the way I remember sports in the 1970's. In fact, I'm increasingly convinced that a lot of young people will think about the 2020's in the same way I think about the 1970's.
ReplyDeleteIt should not be surprising -- and in fact, I am not surprised -- that this game between UNC and LSU is a first-rate uniform matchup.
ReplyDeleteTrailing 3-2 with one out in the top of the 9th, UNC gets a single to left to tie the game and 3. The games today have been incredibly good.
ReplyDeleteLSU retires the side, and the Tigers come up in the bottom of the 9th of a 3-3 game with a chance to win the Region.
ReplyDeleteLSU wastes a one-out single, and this game is going to extra innings.
ReplyDeleteWith two out in the top of the 10th, an LSU outfielder loses a long fly to right in the lights. It drops for a double. LSU intentionally walks the next better, and then the next man slaps a single up the middle to give Carolina a 4-3 lead. LSU is a great baseball program, but trying to eliminate UNC on its home field is a very difficult task.
ReplyDeleteLSU, who almost always disappoints me whenever I root for them, does so again. UNC advances with a 4-3 win.
ReplyDeleteI don't really remember ever rooting for either of them in anything. But they do both have great uniforms.
ReplyDeleteThat game was a big Frank Deford/Everybody's All-American game, as the book is set at UNC and the movie at LSU.
ReplyDelete