Cal State Fullerton, TCU earn spots in College World Series
Cal State Fullerton and TCU wrapped up their NCAA baseball super regionals on Sunday and clinched spots in the College World Series.
The Titans and Horned Frogs will join No. 1 national seed Oregon State, No. 7 Louisville and Texas A&M in the CWS, which starts Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska. The three other spots will be filled Sunday night and Monday.
Fullerton locked up an 18th CWS appearance, and second in three years, with a 2-1 win in Game 3 at Long Beach State. TCU reached Omaha for the fourth straight year and fifth time since 2010 with a 8-1 victory in Game 2 over Missouri State.
Sam Houston State was at Florida State and Mississippi State was at LSU in Game 2s on Sunday night.
The second game of the Wake ForestFlorida super regional in Gainesville, Florida, was suspended in the bottom of the fifth because of rain. The game will resume at 1:04 p.m. EDT Monday with the Demon Deacons leading 5-4. Florida won the series opener Saturday.
In Long Beach, California, Fullerton's Colton Eastman pitched one-hit shutout ball over seven innings with eight strikeouts and four walks. The Titans managed only two hits against four pitchers. They scored their runs in the fourth inning when John Sheaks hit the first two batters with pitches and Hank LoForte singled both of them in. The Dirtbags' only run was unearned, coming on a passed ball in the sixth.
Long Beach State, which won five of six against Fullerton in the regular season, scored three times in the first inning of Game 1 on Friday but was held without an earned run over the last 26 innings of the series.
TCU's Evan Skoug, who hit the go-ahead two-run homer in a 3-2 victory in Game 1 on Saturday, and Elliott Barzilli both went deep in the Horned Frogs' win in Fort Worth, Texas. Brian Howard struck out 11 and limited the Bears to four hits in 7 1/3 innings.
The Frogs have won all five of their games in the national tournament. They're the fifth program in 30 years to make four straight trips to the CWS.
A look around the country:
HOME TEAM TURNABOUT
Home teams are a combined 12-2 in the eight super regionals, and four of the five decided so far have been won by the home team. Fullerton was the only visiting team to take a series.
Last year, only three home teams won super regionals, and they combined to go 6-13.
GAME 2 JINX ENDS
TCU came into Sunday with an alltime record of 5-1 in Game 1s of super regionals but 0-5 in Game 2s. The Frogs finally broke through with their win over Missouri State.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"The West Coast is still the most powerful place to play baseball for me and it sucks that we only get two Big West teams and we get stuck playing each other (in super regionals) because it would have been super fun playing in Omaha. Us and Long Beach teeing it up in Omaha, that would be epic."— Fullerton coach Rick Vanderhook.
DIRTBAGS' CONSOLATION
Long Beach State (42-20-1) won 40 games for the first time 2004, won its first Big West title since 2008 and hosted its first super regional since 2004. The Dirtbags also had a record 11 players, including coach Troy Buckley, earn All-Big West honors.