GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Hurston Waldrep recorded 13 strikeouts while pitching eight scoreless innings, Colby Halter had three RBIs, and Florida beat South Carolina 4-0 on Saturday to sweep the best-of-three Gainesville Super Regional in the NCAA baseball tournament and advance to the College World Series.
Florida (50-15), which has won five games in a row, earned its first CWS berth since making four straight trips to the eight-team event from 2015-18. This year’s CWS starts Friday in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Gators are this year’s first qualifier.
It will be the program’s 13th CWS appearance overall and eighth in 16 seasons with Kevin O’Sullivan as coach.
“Just happy to have the opportunity to experience this,” O’Sullivan said. “Getting to Omaha is goal No. 1, but we feel like we have a team that can potentially do some special things in Omaha.”
Waldrep (9-3), who had his sixth game this season with at least 10 strikeouts, gave up just three hits.
Josh Rivera went 3-for-5 with a double and an RBI for the Gators, and BT Riopelle, who went 0-for-2, walked twice and scored twice for the NCAA tournament’s No. 2 seed.
No. 15 South Carolina (42-21) swept three games against the Gators in the Southeastern Conference’s regular season by a combined score of 25-10 but managed just four runs in back-to-back losses at the super regional.
On Saturday, the Gamecocks had just one runner move beyond first base, when Ethan Petry reached and advanced to second on an error in the bottom of the fourth before back-to-back groundouts ended the inning.
The start of the game was delayed by nearly three hours due to inclement weather.
TCU 6, Indiana State 4
FORT WORTH, Texas — Cole Fontenelle went 3-for-4 with a double, a solo home run and two runs scored to help unseeded TCU beat No. 14 Indiana State and sweep the Fort Worth Super Regional.
TCU (41-22), which beat the Sycamores 4-1 in the best-of-three series opener Friday, clinched a berth in the College World Series for the sixth time in program history and will head back to Omaha for the first time since making four straight appearances from 2014-17.
Tre Richardson hit an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth that sparked a five-run inning, and he scored the go-ahead run when Anthony Silva hit a single to right that made it 3-2. Luke Boyers followed with an RBI double and Silva scored on a groundout by Austin Davis to cap the outburst and give the Horned Frogs a three-run lead.
Fontenelle hit a two-out solo shot in the fifth to give TCU a 6-2 lead, but Miguel Rivera answered with an RBI double in the top of the sixth and then scored on a groundout by Seth Gergely to trim Indiana State’s deficit to 6-4.
Starter Sam Stoutenborough (5-0) gave up three runs on five hits over 5 1/3 innings to get the win for TCU. Ben Abeldt came on in the sixth and allowed four hits, including two doubles, and two walks but just one run in 2 2/3 innings of relief before Garrett Wright came on in the ninth and gave up a lead-off single to Grant Magill before retiring the side to earn his fifth save of the season.
Adam Pottinger drew a two-out walk in the top of the first that moved Randal Diaz to second base before Keegan Watson and Rivera hit back-to-back RBI singles for Indiana State (45-17).
Virginia 14, Duke 4
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Griff O’Ferrall led off the game with the first of Virginia’s four home runs, Jake Gelof went 3-for-5 with a double, a home run and four RBIs, and the seventh-seeded Cavaliers set a program record for runs in a super regional game as they forced a decisive third game that will be played Sunday.
Connelly Early (12-2) scattered nine hits — and allowed another runner when he hit a batter — in seven innings while allowing three unearned runs with eight strikeouts to get the win.
Luke Storm hit a two-run double and scored, and Damon Lux followed four pitches later with another double to pull Duke within a run in the bottom of the fourth inning, but Ethan Anthony hit a three-run shot and Anthony Stephan added a solo homer in the fifth to make it 8-3 in favor of the Cavaliers (49-13).
Gelof hit a two-run double in the sixth and a two-run homer that sparked a four-run eighth that gave Virginia a 14-3 lead.
Storm and Lux each had two RBIs for Duke (39-23), and Tyler Albright went 3-for-4 with two runs.
Oral Roberts 8, Oregon 7
EUGENE, Ore. — Justin Quinn had a two-run single in the bottom of the ninth to rally Oral Roberts past Oregon and force a winner-take-all meeting in the Eugene Super Regional.
Oral Roberts (50-12), which had its 21-game winning streak ended with a 9-8 loss to Oregon in the opener Friday, will play a rubber game against the Ducks (41-22) on Sunday for a CWS berth. Both teams have made just one previous CWS appearance, Oregon in 1954 and the Golden Eagles in 1978.
Saturday’s game provided a second straight dramatic finish after the Ducks rallied from eight runs down in Game 1 to set a super regional record for a comeback victory.
Drew Cowley hit a two-out single that scored Rikuu Nishida with the tying run in the top of the fifth inning. Sabin Ceballos followed with an RBI double to put the Ducks up 5-4.
Ceballos drew a two-out walk and moved to third on a double by Tanner Smith. Drew Smith drove in both runners with a triple for a 7-4 lead in the seventh. Smith’s hit looked like it was going to be caught by Jonah Cox before Cox hit the wall and lost the ball.
Drew Stahl led off the bottom of the inning with a single and scored on a two-out double by Jake McMurray to get the Golden Eagles within two. Jonah Cox led off the eighth with a home run, extending his hitting streak to 46 games and pulling Oral Roberts within 7-6.
The Golden Eagles’ winning rally started with back-to-back one-out singles by Jacob Godman and Blaze Brothers — the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters in the lineup. Jake McMurray walked to load the bases before Quinn delivered.
Cade Denton (3-1) worked the final 3 1/3 innings to get the win. He allowed two runs on four hits and two walks, striking out three.
Josh Mollerus (3-3) took the loss after retiring just one batter in the ninth.
Wake Forest 5, Alabama 4
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Danny Corona, Tommy Hawke and Justin Johnson each hit a home run to help Wake Forest, the NCAA tournament’s overall No. 1 seed, beat No. 16 Alabama in a super regional opener.
Rhett Lowder improved to 15-0 this season for Wake Forest (51-10). The 6-foot-4 right-hander allowed three runs on five hits and a walk with six strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings. Sean Sullivan had struck out seven batters over 2 2/3 innings of relief, giving up two hits, including a solo shot by Caden Rose — his second home run of the game — in the top of the eighth that capped the scoring.
Wake Forest can advance to the CWS with a win Sunday over the Crimson Tide (43-20) in Game 2. The No. 1 national seed has not been among the final eight teams that make it to Omaha since 2018.
After Marek Houston struck out and Hawke grounded out to lead off the bottom of the fifth, Corona hit a tiebreaking home run and Brock Wilken reached on an error to lead off the sixth and later scored on a two-out single by Adam Cecere to give the Demon Deacons a 5-3 lead.
Hawke homered to lead off the bottom of the first and Johnson did the same in the second before Pierce Bennett scored on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.
Rose got Alabama on the board with a homer in the top of the third, and after Dominic Tamez drew a two-out walk in the fourth, Colby Shelton hit a two-run shot in the fifth to make it 3-3.
The contest’s first pitch was delayed by more than two hours due to a medical situation unrelated to the game at David F. Couch Ballpark.
Texas 7, Stanford 5
STANFORD, Calif. — Porter Brown hit a two-RBI single that gave the Longhorns their first lead of the game and capped a five-run top of the ninth inning as they beat eighth-seeded Stanford in a super regional opener.
Texas (42-20) can clinch a CWS berth with a win over the Cardinal in Game 2 on Sunday.
Eric Kennedy walked to lead off the ninth, Jalin Flores was hit by a pitch and O’Dowd followed with a walk for the Longhorns to load the bases. Kennedy and Flores scored when Moore reached safely and advanced to second on a fielding error before Jared Thomas hit an RBI groundout that made it 5-5. Peyton Powell drew a four-pitch walk, Dylan Campbell was intentionally walked to load the bases, and after Garret Guillemette struck out swinging, Thomas’ single capped the scoring.
Ace Whitehead (4-0) gave up two walks in a scoreless eighth inning to earn the win. Zane Morehouse struck out the side — all swinging on a combined 15 pitches — to get his seventh save of the season.
Drew Bowser hit a solo homer in the bottom of the sixth and Malcolm Moore added a two-run home run in the seventh to give Stanford (42-18) a 5-2 lead.
Alberto Rios and Moore drew back-to-back two-out walks, the former loading the bases and the latter driving in Tommy Troy — who walked earlier in the inning — to give Stanford a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Braden Montgomery doubled and then scored on a double by Moore to make it 2-0 in the third.
Brown singled to lead off the fifth inning, and two pitches later, Eric Kennedy hit a two-run homer to right for Texas that tied it up.
LSU 14, Kentucky 0
BATON ROUGE, La. — Tommy White and Tre’ Morgan each hit two of LSU’s six home runs, Paul Skenes allowed just four hits and a walk over 7 2/3 scoreless innings, and the fifth-seeded Tigers steamrolled No. 12 Kentucky to open the Baton Rouge Super Regional.
LSU can clinch a CWS berth with a win Sunday in Game 2. Game 1 of the series between SEC programs, which was originally scheduled for 2 p.m. local time, was delayed more than seven hours due to inclement weather.
Morgan went 4-for-4, White was 3-for-5, and each had three RBIs and scored three times. Gavin Dugas hit a home run in the fourth inning and Josh Pearson hit a leadoff homer to spark a six-run fifth that gave LSU a 12-0 lead.
Skenes (12-2), one of the top prospects in the 2023 draft class, struck out nine Kentucky batters. It’s just the fourth time in 16 starts this season that the junior, who transferred to LSU after two seasons at Air Force, was limited to single-digit strikeouts.
Morgan hit a solo home run in the bottom of the first and added another immediately after White hit a two-run shot in the second to give LSU (47-15) a 4-0 lead.
Nolan McCarthy led off the sixth inning with a double — the last of just two times Kentucky (40-20) had a runner in scoring position — and advanced to third on a groundout before Skenes had back-to-back strikeouts to preserve the shutout.
Reuben Church hit a two-out single in the top of the fifth and moved to second on a wild pitch by Skenes, who struck out Ryan Waldschmidt to end the threat.