SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
Gimme an M, gimmie an I, gimmie an S, gimmie an S, gimmie an I, gimmie a P, gimmie a P, gimmie an I, and you’ve got Mississippi, same state as Southern Mississippi and Mississippi State.
Last year it was the Rebels carrying off the NCAA Division I Baseball World Series by surprising favored Vanderbilt. This time the state sent unseeded Ole Miss who ousted Southern Miss in the Super Regionals.
Yes, there’s been quite a few surprise bounces in the prestigious annual event that throws the initial pitch Friday afternoon at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Neb.
One of which that occurred in the Super Regionals played at Hattiesburg, Miss., when the visiting Rebels became the last entry in the World Series Elite Eight field by blanking 11th-seeded Southern Miss twice, 10-0 and 5-0.
Not only was it Ole Miss’s first shutouts of the season, but the first time Southern Miss was shut out in back-to-back games since 1987, and the first time the Rebels (37-20) made it to Omaha since 2014.
Following on this path was Notre Dame. It pulled off another stunner in eliminating No. 1-seeded Tennessee in a best-of-three, winning the opener, dropping game two, and taking the decider to bring a 40-15 mark to the WS.
And that put the Fighting Irish into the 7 p.m. second game Friday against 9th-seeded Texas (47-20), which got past 8th-seeded East Carolina in three games, losing the first, taking the second, and handily claiming game three.
In the Friday opener that gets underway at 2 p.m., surprise, surprise as unseeded Oklahoma gets to this level for the first time since 2012 after first ousting 15th-seeded Florida in three games at Gainesville, and then knocking out 4th-seeded Virginia Tech in the best-of-three at Blacksburg, Va.
Just a few days after the Oklahoma Sooners won their sixth national softball championship, their baseball program found its way to a possible hardball championship and the women making reservations to be in those stands in Omaha.
These Sooners are 42-21 and meet up with 5th-seeded Texas A & M (42-18), the first team to make Omaha after sweeping 12th-seeded Louisville in a pair of game played at College Station, Tx.
On Saturday, 2nd-seeded Stanford (57-16) was happy to respond at home after dropping game one to unseeded Connecticut and winning back-to-back, unseeded Arkansas (43-19) taking two at 10th-seeded North Carolina, and 14th-seeded Auburn (42-20) traveling far and winning the deciding contest at 3rd-seeded Oregon State to advance.
It’s anybody’s guess as to who hoists the trophy this time. The No. 1 seed doesn’t always win it all. Teams that get hot in the Super Regionals cool off at Omaha when the field narrows to eight.
Notre Dame’s last time at Omaha was in 2002 when it won the title over Southern California, and it even brought that championship banner to Lindsay Nelson Field in Knoxville to display after the game.
Currently, Ole Miss has found its pitching, A & M found its way its way to win tight tussles, Oklahoma just found its way to follow the successful road traveled by its softball team, the Longhorns were overjoyed to win twice at East Carolina after losing game one.
The Sooners have just pieced all the parts together, the pitching, the hitting, the fielding, and the baserunning. The Razorbacks won impressively at the Tar Heels, the Tigers the same at Oregon State.
