Pardon me if this is shorter than you expected. I face a quick turnaround Sunday after a late Saturday night to get down to the elimination game in Columbia.
Cougars in drivers' seat
College of Charleston is in the best possible shape at the Gainesville regional. The Cougars' 6-3 victory over Long Beach State Saturday night has them one victory away from advancing to a super regional.
Nick Pappas and Ben Boykin had home runs and Bailey Ober and two relievers handled the pitching duties.
Long Beach plays North Carolina at 1 p.m. Sunday for the right to play the Cougars at 7 p.m. Should Charleston win that game, it takes the regional title. If either Long Beach State or North Carolina win both games Sunday, another matchup with the Cougars would be held Monday.
North Carolina eliminated regional host and No. 2 national seed Florida, 5-2, earlier Saturday.
Gamecocks fall into losers bracket
A horrid early start put South Carolina down by four runs and the Gamecocks never came all the way back losing to Maryland, 4-3, in the Columbia regional.
It was USC's first-ever NCAA Tournament loss in 18 games at Carolina Stadium and snapped a 28-game USC home winning streak in the NCAA overall.
Gamecocks starter Jack Wynkoop was no mystery to the Maryland lineup, giving up 6 hits in 1 2/3 innings. A throwing error by Joey Pankake led to two Terrapins unearned runs and a 4-0 lead after two innings.
The Gamecocks had numerous opportunities to tie or take the lead, but could not do so. Pankake grounded into a double play with runners on first and third to end the game.
The biggest positive for the Gamecocks may have been freshman Taylor Widener's career-long 6 1/3 inning relieve outing. Widener shut out Maryland during its stint and saved the rest of USC's bullpen for the remaining game(s) of the regional.
USC must win three games in two days to capture the regional. The Gamecocks face Campbell at 1 p.m. Sunday. The winner of that game would need to meet Maryland at 7 p.m. Sunday to force a winner-take-all game at 7 Monday night.
Campbell stayed alive by scoring three runs in the top of the 12th inning to eliminated Old Dominion earlier Saturday.
Tigers bow out quietly
Poor defensive and erratic middle relief -- both season-long bugaboos -- contributed to Clemson's season ending fizzling to an end with a 6-4 loss to Xavier.
The Tigers trailed Xavier 3-2 when lightning caused a 108-minute delay in the top of the seventh inning. That was too much of an interruption for ace Daniel Gossett to return to the game. In the bottom of the inning reliever Drew Moyer made an error on a bunt to set the stage for a three-run inning for the Musketeers.
Clemson's Steve Wilkerson had a two-run homer in the eighth, but that was as closer as the Tigers would come.
The Tigers were reported to be one of the final four teams selected for the tournament and their lackluster regional showing - Oregon won on Friday, 18-1 -- suggested they either didn't deserve to be in the tournament or didn't want to be in it.
Clemson went 0-2 in regional play for the first time since 1981 and fueled the latest round of message board diatribe against Tigers coach Jack Leggett.
The carping criticism first heated up this season when the Tigers lost leads in the first and third games of a series sweep by South Carolina, but died down somewhat until Clemson was swept by Florida State in a home doubleheader.
Going 3-3 against ACC doormats Boston College and Notre Dame - and avoiding a 2-4 mark only by scoring five runs in the bottom of the ninth of the BC series finale to tie the game and win in extra innings -- fanned the criticism more over the final two weeks of the regular season.
A pair of wins in the ACC Tournament -- including a walk-off thriller over regular-season champ Miami -- and the NCAA Tournament bid had pushed some of the criticism in the background. The lost weekend in Nashville has brought it back to the forefront.
Here's a link to Tigernet.com's account of Leggett's postgame press conference.
Tigernet
In other regionals
* No. 1 national seed Oregon State was pounded by Cal Irvine, 14-2, to suffer its first-ever NCAA regional home loss. The Beavers must come out of the losers bracket with three wins to stay alive.
* No. 5 national seed Florida State was ousted by Alabama, 6-5. The Seminoles trailed 6-0 entering the bottom of ninth but got the potential winning run on base before coming up short in coach Mike Martin's latest attempt to win his first College World Series title.
* Kennesaw State is in the enviable position in the Tallahassee regional after scoring eight runs in the 13th inning to beat Georgia Southern, 13-5, in the winners bracket game. Georgia Southern had a 4-1 lead after one inning.
* The SEC is 12-7 through the first two days (Ole Miss has played only once so far because of Friday's rainout) and the ACC is 6-7.
* Kentucky scored four runs in the top of the ninth to beat Kent State, 4-2, in an elimination game of the Louisville regional.
* For a few seconds, Sam Houston State appeared to have knocked off No. 7 national seed TCU, 3-2, in the 21st inning of their game at Fort Worth. The Bearkats had the bases loaded with one out when the batter hit a high hopper to the TCU shortstop. The ball was hit so softly and bounced so high that a double play or a throw for a forceout at home were out of the question. The shortstop tossed the ball to second. The Sam Houston baserunner upended the fielder and the throw skittered into the ground. But the umpire called interference, an automatic double play and the inning was over. TCU scored a run in the 22nd and the game ended about 3:30 a.m. EDT. I thought the umpire made the proper call.
* Eight of 16 No. 1 seeds lost in the first two rounds of the tournament. In addition to South Carolina, Oregon State, Florida and Florida State, other No. 1's losing on Saturday were Cal Poly, Miami and Rice.
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