OMAHA. Neb. — The last strike was launched at 1:13 a.m. CT. With that, the Texas A&M crowd could finally roar at the Aggies’ victory — not to mention the time and the quiet downtown streets outside. With that, Florida’s last chancer, Ashton Wilson, hit the dirt with his bat in frustration after swinging and missing.
Texas A&M was in the winning bracket, Florida was in the losing bracket, and dawn would arrive in exactly 277 minutes.
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Big moments in the Men’s College World Series can happen at any time, once Mother Nature gets in the way. The Aggies and Gators watched rain and lightning for four hours and seven minutes Saturday night before finally getting to play. That sounds like a lot, but maybe not. “Baseball players are used to this,” Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle would later say. “Happens all the time.”
Regardless, once they got there, there was plenty for those who were awake to see. Three Texas A&M pitchers would retire 16 Florida batters, needing only 11 outs by other means. Aggies right fielder Jace LaViolette would make a game-saving catch against the wall. Gators superstar Jac Caglianone would play like Jac Caglianone.
And the Aggies would escape 3-2, the fourth straight one-point decision to open the MCWS. This has never happened before. It had been a typical first two days and people were already trying to decide what that meant. “This is the golden age of college baseball.” » said Schlossnagle. “I’ve been here for 35 years. It’s never tasted so good.
Since the clock on the scoreboard at Charles Schwab Field was a constant reminder of the time, this game became something of a late show.
Live from Omaha, it’s Saturday evening! With the Texas A&M Aggies and their starting pitcher, who threw a third of an inning in a month. Special guest, the Florida Gators with the superstar two-way icon who can say he owns 23 more home runs as a hitter this season than he is allowed as a pitcher. Sorry for the four hour rain delay, but it’s not every day you can catch the first pitch of a Men’s College World Series game at 10:16 p.m. No game had started that late here for 25 years.
Both teams were on the field for almost seven hours before they were able to take the field. “It was brutal,” LaViolette said later. “Literally we just sat there and did nothing. » Imagine what it was like for Justin Lamkin. He had thrown nine pitchers in a month for the Aggies, and now had to wait even longer to start his team’s first game in the MCWS. The previous night had been quite tense. “I tried to not think about it anymore, to be a child again and enjoy the present moment,” he said. And now he had all afternoon. “It was pretty normal, just hanging out, relaxing and clearing my head.” The Aggies snacked, watched TV and waited for the lightning to stop.
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“In Rosenblatt, you wouldn’t have had a place to go,” Schlossnagle said of the old MCWS ballpark. “You would have hung out in the dugout, gone back to the hotel or taken the bus. I remember those days. Luckily, now you have a great clubhouse, space and batting cages. Players baseball players are used to this, and this baseball stadium is really great. Both teams had plenty of space to stay free.
Finally, it started. The Gators didn’t have a baserunner until 11:05 p.m. with a Michael Robertson single in the third inning. At that point, the Aggies led 2-0. and Lamkin was close to retiring nine of 10 batters, striking out six. Who saw this coming since he was more or less on hiatus? “It’s kind of the same, stick to what I do, stick to my routine, nothing really changes,” he said of how a guy goes from relegation to corner. bullpen to give his team a boost in the college world. Series.
At 11:25 p.m., Texas A&M led 3-0 but the Aggies had left the bases loaded two innings in a row. That was asking for trouble. Texas A&M’s pitching plan unfolded, split into equal parts of three innings. First Lamkin, then Chris Cortez with his 100-mile-an-hour fastball, then Evan Aschenbeck, recently named college baseball’s reliever of the year. As they came out of the enclosure one after the other, Saturday turned into Sunday.
At midnight, Texas A&M still led 3-0 in the sixth inning and Florida’s Cade Kurland trotted toward first base after striking out a Cortez pitch on the batter’s helmet. And hello to you. Ten Gators had struck out in the first five innings. No Florida runner had gotten past second base. Jac Caglianone, arguably the most feared and renowned player in college football, had a blood stain on his pants, near the knee.
By 12:08 a.m., two more Gators had been retired, leaving two runners stranded, one of them Caglianone, who sent a 117 mph laser into right field for a double. He would also be single and walking. “If anyone has a better idea, let me know. I don’t know how to get him out,” Schlossnagle said later.
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By 12:35 a.m., the final major league game of the evening had ended in Arizona. Here the lead was down to 3-2 and the crowd was reduced to maybe 50 percent. But that’s a lot of people when the game was supposed to start 6 and a half hours earlier.
1:05 Florida’s ninth began, with Aschenbeck trying to close the door. He struck one out, gave up a single, then faced Kurland, who suddenly sent a deep drive to right that put LaViolette’s back against the wall.
“There you go,” was Aschenbeck’s first thought.
“From the bat, homer,” was Schlossnagle’s.
“I thought he had it because he never reacts like that when he hits one; he sort of lowers his head and rounds the bases. He thought he understood it; I thought he had it figured out,” Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan said.
Right in the right direction, LaViolette wasn’t so sure. “I didn’t know if I had a chance,” he said. But he rose to his 6-5 frame and collected the ball against the wall. If he was just 6-2, Florida would have taken the lead. “I told Jace,” Schlossnagle said, “I’m super happy he’s big.”
01:12 The fans were on their feet, showing admirable energy for the hour. Robertson singled, Caglianone walked. Two outs went to Wilson, who had swung a magic bat last weekend but not so far this one. A minute later, he struck out for the fourth time.
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Tough loss for the Gators, who were 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position. They’ve been rolling since sliding into the NCAA Tournament with a 28-27 record, but it was disappointing. “It’s been a tough month for us. It’s been a tough year for us,” O’Sullivan said.
At 1:21 a.m., Lamkin was still signing autographs, having spent one of the most exciting nights – and mornings – of his life. “It was unreal understanding everything for the first time,” he said.
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It was so late that Schloassnagle began his press conference by wishing everyone a happy Father’s Day. At 2:09 a.m., there were still fans posing for photos in front of the Road to Omaha statue. In a little over four hours, in North Carolina, the first golf shots would be given in the final round of the US Open. In less than nine hours, Florida State and Virginia would be back in the stadium preparing to play a playoff game. It had been a long night at Charles Schwab Field.