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Fresno State's surprising 12-9 win over #3 Arizona State last night in Tempe completed the field for the College World Series which starts Saturday at Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium. The Bulldogs were a #4 seed in their regional in Long Beach and surprised Long Beach State and San Diego and then handed the Sun Devils just their fourth and fifth losses at home all season. LSU also earned a spot last night with a 21-7 win over UC Irvine. The Anteaters were just three outs from moving on to Omaha on Sunday, but LSU pulled that one out and then it was no contest in the deciding game.
The eight teams are divided into two four-team groups. Each group plays a double-elimination tournament. The survivors of each group then face off in a best of three final series.
The first game will be Saturday at 11 am PT when Stanford takes on #3 seed Florida State. #8 Georgia will play #1 Miami at 4 pm PT.
On Sunday Fresno State will play #6 Rice at 11 am PT and #7 LSU will play #2 North Carolina at 4 pm PT.
The final series will be played June 23-25.
The final eight has three ACC teams, two from the SEC, and one each from the Pac-10, C-USA, and WAC.
This article from AP (www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/
cardinals/story/658ABFB9D86DF8DB86257464003ADB13?
OpenDocument)
claims it was staged, but I heard the overnight host on ESPN/710 AM saying that the fight started when the Arizona State first baseman neglected to catch a throw by the ASU third baseman during the pregame warm-up.
Eventually the entire team piled on (possibly ESPN highlights?), and the radio host said it looked like a victory celebration after a World Series win, except that the game hadn't started yet.
If it were a staged fight, it wasn't enough to lift the Sun Devils to victory in their game.
Bob, have you ever been to the CWS? I was thinking about flying out for one day because my alma mater made it to Omaha, but I couldn't justify the uncertainty about getting good tickets, the airfare, and the flight times.
I would love to go to the CWS, but the hotels there fill up fast and it's a tough ticket.
It is something I would like to go to one day.
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