Friday, June 16 – Game 1: Oral Roberts 6, TCU 5
The “faux four” Oral Roberts survived another date with doom on Friday afternoon when 9-hole hitter Blaze Brothers capped off a 4-run ninth inning with a 3-run blast halfway up the bleachers behind the right field bullpen to give the Golden Eagles a 6-5 lead that held up for day one win over TCU. It was the first hit of the day for the senior second baseman after he reached on an error, popped up, and flew out in his first three plate appearances.
“When Mac [McCroskey], our shortstop, scored, he came around and he said, he’s throwing nothing but sliders,” Brothers said. “That was kind of my approach was see something up, hanging. And he left me two hanging and I took advantage of it.”
Over 7-plus innings, the pitching staffs and defenses for Oral Roberts and TCU executed pitch after pitch and play after play to stifle any sliver of momentum their opponent could muster offensively. Then the dam broke in the bottom of the eighth inning. With the scored tied 2-2 and runners on first and second with one, Golden Eagles skipper Ryan Wolmar waved his right arm and on came junior righty Cade Denton from the bullpen to extinguish the fire.
Three hours before first pitch Denton was named Stopper of the Year — an award given to the best relief pitcher in the country — by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Nearly three hours after first pitch he was unraveling from the get-go. His first toss was a wild pitch that moved both runners into scoring position. With first base now unoccupied, ORU opted to intentionally walk 3-hole hitter and Top 30 MLB Draft prospect Brayden Taylor to set up an threat-ending double play. What played out instead was a 9-pitch at-bat by junior first baseman Cole Fontenelle that resulted in a bases-loaded walk to bring home the go-ahead run, followed by a plunking of junior second baseman Tre Richardson and a sac fly off the bat of junior designated hitter Kurtis Byrne.
For seemingly the first time all afternoon every spec of momentum was sitting in one dugout. But Oral Roberts didn’t care. TCU’s Luke Savage jogged back out to the mound after cruising through the side in the eighth on just nine pitches. Oral Roberts did. not. care. Three straight singles by Mac McCroskey, Holden Breeze, and Drew Stahl in a span of eight pitches cut the deficit to 5-3. Then Brothers came up with one out and tattooed an 0-1 slider into section 125 for the biggest hit of his career. Denton returned for the bottom of the ninth and punched out a pair before getting Brayden Taylor to line out to right field to end the game to work around a base hit and a walk.
That late-inning heroics marked the fourth time in their seven NCAA Tournament games that the Golden Eagles have rallied from multi-run deficit to win.
“What a great college game, man. I think that’s what this tournament is about,” Oral Roberts head coach Ryan Folmar said. “I told our guys after the game, man, this is going to take everybody. It takes everybody here. Everybody’s got to have a part in this thing. And man, it was Blaze’s turn tonight. And Cade finished the thing off like he has many times all year along. And Justin was special the entire game and really sparked us. Proud of our guys. Proud of the way we hung in. Great thing is we get to play some more, so we’re having fun.”
Friday, June 16 – Game 2: No. 2 Florida 6, No. 7 Virginia 5
In the nightcap, the second verse was the same — ok, maybe not the exact same, but similar enough — as the first. The Gators trailed by three going into the bottom of the seventh and by two entering the bottom of the ninth before rallying behind a pair of no-doubter solo home runs and a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded and one out to beat Virginia 6-5 in walk-off fashion. Florida head coach Kevin O’Sullivan summed up the entirety of the first day in Omaha perfectly in his opening remarks:
“Special things happen this time of the year,” he said.
Indeed. And although Florida’s stars came through down the stretch to aid in the comeback, it was an unsung hero in sophomore outfielder Ty Evans who lit the fuse. The former 20th-round pick out of Lakeland Christian High School in Auburndale, Florida got his second season in Gainesville off to a strong start at the plate, but a 5-for-43 slump helped drop his slash line to .217/.285/.378 entering the Men’s College World Series. The slump and subsequent diminished playing time didn’t faze his performance when he was called on to pinch-hit in not one, but two big spots late on Friday night with his team trailing Virginia 4-1. After a one-out walk led to a pitching change, Evans entered the game and greeted Cavaliers reliever Jack O’Connor with a double to right field on a 3-2 count. That moved the lead runner to third, allowing him to score on a ground ball to cut the deficit in half.
Two innings later after Virginia added an insurance run in the top of the ninth inning, Evans again sparked a rally with a solo blast to left field bleachers to lead off the bottom half of the final frame.
“Being a pitcher, as a guy looking from the outside/in, I noticed Ty,” Friday night starting pitcher Brandon Sproat said. “He’s put his head down and grinded. Even when he’s not playing, he’s been being one of the best teammates in the dugout and has been one of the best teammates in the dugout when his number is called. That swing there gave us so much momentum. I obviously wasn’t in the lineup at that time, but I knew we were going to win that game. With that home run.”
Two batters later, junior center fielder Wyatt Langford — a projected top three pick in the upcoming MLB Draft — unleashed a game-tying, 456-foot bomb that ended up in the restroom after it landed on the concourse behind the left field bleachers. The next three batters all reached via single, walk, and a hit-by-pitch against Virginia closer Jake Berry to set the table for freshman Luke Heyman to win it with a well-struck line drive to center field.