SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
Game 2 followed Game 1 in the late Friday afternoon with another 6-5 tight win, this one for No. 2 Florida over No. 5 Virginia in the NCAA Division I National College Baseball World Series played at Charles Schwab in Omaha, Neb.
It put the Gators at 51-15 and into a next game Sunday night against Oral Roberts, which earlier edged TCU, 6-5, and with Saturday’s schedule sending No. 1-ranked Wake Forest (53-10) against No. 8 Stanford (42-18) in the noon opener, and followed by the 5 o’clock closer pairing No. 3 Louisiana State (48-15) with Tennessee (42-20).
In the Gators-Cavaliers contest, Joe Caglianone tallied the winning run on a sacrifice fly by Luke Heyman in the last of the ninth.
It came after Florida Ty Evans and Wyatt Langford homered to tie it. It was the Gators’ 21st consecutive come-from-behind victory sending into Sunday night‘s game against Oral Roberts.
Here, both teams were having a hit parade, the Cavs had scored four times in the seventh to grab a 3-run lead in front of a huge crowd of nearly 25,000 that included pro football Hall of Famer Peyton Manning, and with his alma mater Tennessee in the field.
But Florida got one back in the bottom of the seventh and another in the eighth on BT Riopelle’s four-bagger. Then Virginia got an RBI triple from Harrison Didawicks to put it up two runs in the ninth.
The Gators answered back against reliever Jake Berry in their
bottom half, tying things and then claiming the triumph.
“It’s kind of the make-up our team,” Langford said. “We’ve proved it many times throughout the season.”
Evans and Langford homered to tie things in the ninth, with Langford’s traveling 456 feet into the walkway behind left field. Then the Gators loaded the bags on a single, walk and hit batter.
