Arizona is headed to the College World Series Championship series, as they defeated Florida State, 10-3. The Wildcats have yet to lose in Omaha (they have won nine in a row) and will most likely throw Kurt Heyer to start the championship series on Sunday at 8pm ET on ESPN2. Arizona will be playing for their fourth national championship, first since 1986.

It was a rematch of last Friday night’s ten inning victory for Arizona (in which Heyer yet again threw a gem deep into the game). Heyer scattered nine hits and three walks over 7.1 innings. He allowed two runs and struck out three. Heyer leads the nation with 153 innings (the most in Division I since 2006).

It started out so well for Florida State, as Sherman Johnson led off the game with a hard hit ball to left-center. He hustled right out of the box and headed to second base but was thrown out (he appeared to be safe on the replay).

Things went downhill from there.

Joey Rickard led off the bottom of the first inning with a single off FSU freshman starter Brandon Leibrandt. Johnny Field followed with a ball hit right back to Leibrandt. Double play right? WRONG. He threw the ball into centerfield.

Then the wheels fell off. Three hits, two more errors, a sac fly, and two walks put six runs on the board for Arizona. FSU was on their second pitcher (Leibrandt only recorded one out), as they would use a CWS record-tying eight total pitchers in the game.

Robert Refsnyder hit a solo homerun and Bobby Brown followed with a two-run homerun two batters later in the 4th inning. Refsnyder went 3-for-4 in the win.

*The Seminoles finished at 50-17. No other team has played in the CWS as many times without winning a championship (21st appearance).

The College World Series got underway in Omaha on Friday afternoon with the Cinderella team, Stony Brook, facing UCLA. Maybe the first trip to Omaha got the better of the Seawolves, as they lost to the Bruins, 9-1.

UCLA jumped on Stony Brook starter Tyler Johnson in the very first inning. He allowed five runs on five hits and walk in that inning. He fell behind just about every hitter.

Meanwhile, Stony Brook could do nothing against UCLA starter Adam Plutko. He allowed just one run on five hits and two walks over seven innings. He struck out seven. Freshman reliever David Berg came on and threw two hitless innings of relief.

UCLA leadoff hitter Beau Amaral collected two hits, as did Kevin Kramer. Jeff Gelalich, Pat Valaika, and Kevin Williams each drove in two runs in the win. For the Seawolves, Maxx Tissenbaum collected two of the team’s five hits.

» Continue reading “UCLA, Arizona Win on Day 1 of College World Series”