Cool As Hell: The Arizona Wildcats are the cock of the walk after starting off 2-0 in Omaha.

DAY THREE IN OMAHA

Arizona gets the drop in the 2012 College World Series, advancing to the Bracket One finals with a 4-0 win over Pac 12 rival UCLA. With the win the Desert Cats move on to a Thursday afternoon contest against the winner of the upcoming UCLA-Florida State matchup. The Seminoles impressively staved off elimination by beating Stony Brook 12-2, sending home the lovable Long Islanders, much to the chagrin of their hosts.

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GAME FIVE

Turns out that Cinderella had buck teeth, a wart on her nose and a psoriasis skin condition. Five unearned runs in the 3rd inning paced FSU to a big lead and a cruise-of-a-win over the struggling Seawolves. All eight of the runs scored in the deciding 3rd and 4th innings came after SBU had got two outs on the ‘Noles.

The big 6-run 3rd inning started with three straight singles from Sherman Johnson, Devon Travis and an RBI from James Ramsey. Then, with a chance to get out of the inning on a Jayce Boyd routine grounder, shortstop Cole Peragine threw wildly to 1st, allowing two more runs to score. Two batters later Justin Gonzalez blasted the first of two  home runs for the Seminoles, turning a tight game into a laugher.

The pro-Seawolves crowd gave the SBU team a resounding standing ovation after the handshake line was done. Omahans really loved this team. In fact, it was a little weird to see a very small batch of Seminole fans cheering politely, while the entire stadium roared at the slightest bit of positivity from the ‘Wolves. Great scene from the Big Tiddy crowds.

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LINESCORE:

Florida State – 106 203 000 – 12  11  1

Stony Brook – 000 020 000 -  2   7   1

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PITCHING:

WP: Mike Compton, 12-2

LP: Brandon McNitt, 8-4

Save: None

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TOP HITTERS

Florida State:

- Devon Travis, 3-for-3, 3RBI, HR, walk

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Stony Brook:

- Willie Carmona, 2-for-3, RBI, double.

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CONDITIONS:

Start time: 4:08pm

89 degrees, 53% humidity

Partly Cloudy, winds blowing in from right field at 24mph

Duration: 2-hours, 52-minutes

Attendance: 22,112

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KNEE-JERK REACTION.

I think we’ve all seen things like this happen multiple times in our college-baseball lovin’ lives. First time teams on this grand stage in Omaha get the heebie-jeebies and do a faceplant. It happens. The Brookers just never got their plate discipline down that we saw at LSU and even Travis Jankowski and William Carmona admitted that the entire team was lunging at bad pitches all weekend. FSU’s offense got back on track here and I could see them fighting their way back to a possible championship series appearance. Long way to go for that though.

I couldn’t be happier for the Seawolves program though. “Shock the world” is always a bit to hyperbolic for my taste, but I will admit that these guys really did stun the college baseball world this post-season. As Mike Martin said in the post-game press conference, “To go into Alex Box Stadium and beat LSU is a feat that ALL of us would wish we could do. That is a difficult place to win and I wanted to let them (the Stony Brook coaches) know that feat will be very difficult to match in years to come.”

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NOTES:

- Stony Brook ends the season 52-15, and I’m sure I’m not stunning anyone with the fact that this was the most successful season in Seawolves history.

- Obviously SBU didn’t hit like they had in Baton Rouge – or all season long for that matter – getting just three runs on 12 hits, hitting just .194 in their two games. The Seawolves came into Omaha hitting .321 as a team.

- Coach Matt Senk in the post-game press conference, “Hopefully this team has done some things that will have a ripple effect that goes on for a long, long time. I’ve heard from so many people from Northeast baseball wishing us luck and saying how proud they were.”

- Oddly, this win over Stony Brook was Florida State’s first neutral site win in six tries this season.

- Mike Compton’s 12th win is tops in the nation for freshmen. He also tied the school record for wins for a Frosh with last year’s ace Sean Gilmartin, who pulled the trick in his first year as a Seminole in 2009.

- Devon Travis became the first hitter since Ryan Paisel of Georgia in 2008 to get three hits, three runs scored and three RBI in a CWS game.

- Finishing at .414, Travis Jankowski couldn’t catch LSU’s Raph Rhymes as the nation’s batting average leader (at .431), but he did post the most hits of any player in Division 1 this year with 110. Willie Carmona finished second on the team and sixth in the nation with 102 hits on the year.

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GAME SIX

There wasn’t much action to talk about here, you saw how many zeroes these two pitching staffs posted tonight, right? It took a bizarre string of five straight hits by Arizona in the 4th inning from Johnny Field, Alex Mejia, Robert Refsnyder, Seth Mejias-Brean and Bobby Brown, to give the Desert Cats their four runs. Mejias-Brean and Brown both had two RBI on their single and double, respectively.

Can’t hassle the effort from UofA starting pitcher Konner Wade, either. After getting roped for 10 hits and six runs in three innings the first time he faced the Bruins, this time he was spot-on. Tonight Wade went the distance, giving up just five measly hits and throwing 72 strikes in his 109 pitches. How’s THAT for showing up on the Big Stage. White hot spotlight?… Damn it all.

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LINESCORE:

UCLA – 000 000 000 – 0  5  1

UofA – 000 400 000 – 4  6  0

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PITCHING

WP: Konner Wade, 10-3

LP: Nick Vander Tuig, 10-4

Save: None

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TOP HITTERS.

UCLA:

- None, really.

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Arizona:

- Seth Mejias-Brean, 1-for-3, 2RBI

- Bobby Brown, 1-for-3, 2RBI

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CONDITIONS:

Start time: 8:09pm

90 degrees

Winds blowing in from right field, 19mph

Attendance: 19,198

Duration: 2-hours, 29-minutes.

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KNEE-JERK REACTION.

I think both Phil Stanton (of College Baseball Insider) and I were slack-jawed over how this game went. Two great offenses and neither of them could gather more than six hits. And again, UCLA has a knack of knocking pitchers around like crazy, especially Saturday and Sunday starters, but Konner Wade was incredible tonight. This win puts Arizona in a pretty good position, since they aren’t exactly the deepest pitching staff in the Series, this will go a long way to getting them to the title round.

UCLA probably has the slightly deeper pitching staff, so they are just a smidge better equipped for a run back through the loser’s bracket. Ultimately, I still think the offense that gets the hottest between Arizona, UCLA and Florida State, will win the bracket. Although, after the pitching we’ve seen here tonight, that might be a tall order.

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NOTES:

- Arizona coach Andy Lopez picked up win No. 400 of his 10-year tenure at Arizona. Overall, coach Lopez now has 1,087 wins in 29 years as a coach.

- Arizona starter Konner Wade is the first pitcher to throw a complete-game shutout without a walk in the CWS since Arizona State’s Craig Swan back in 1972 vs. Temple.

- UCLA reliever David Berg has now appeared in 49 games this season, the second-highest total in NCAA history behind Connor Falkenbach of Texas in 2005, when he had 51 appearances.

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PICS.

How today’s games looked in pictures.

No, that's not Stony Brook head coach Matt Senk saying, "You think your banana-colored team can beat the Mighty Brook? A-ha-ha-ha!" It's actually coach Mike Martin cracking wise in the pre-game meet-and-greet.

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The Stony Brook fans were rabid and entertaining all weekend. Their road show just ended a little too soon for Omahans sake.

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The spirited Seawolves charge out of the gate at the beginning of the game.

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Super freshman Mike Compton became a 12-game winner with his effort vs. SBU today.

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Travis Jankowski admitted in the post-game that the Seawolves tended to lunge at a lot of bad pitches in their two losses. And no... the bad karma from their slacks-like pants made no difference.

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Sherman Johnson undercuts Willie Carmona on a play at 3rd. Hope he's wearing a cup.

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Typical of Stony Brook's luck, William Carmona's screamer to the wall ended up bouncing into the stands, though had it just bounced off the wall the 'Wolves would've scored a run. FSU's Justin Gonzales is almost mocking him by signaling the ground rule double.

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Devon Travis, clacking helmets with John Holland, got on base each of his four at-bats, including a two-run dinger and an RBI double.

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Sal Intagiata tries to disrupt Devin Travis and his attempt at a double play. It didn't work. The twin killing proceeded unabated.

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Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way: Reserve right fielder Stephen Spradling didn't seen to help matters when he booty-bumped Devon Travis on this pop-up, nearly causing a dropped fly ball.

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Bald guys of the world unite: The great t-shirt exchange found Stony Brook athletic director Jim Fiore giving me a Seawolves Baseball shirt in exchange for a Stitch-Head shirt.

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Despite slightly cooler, more comfortable temperatures and a great matchup of unbeatens, the crowd for the night game seemed to be a lot less than the announced 19,198. Probably due to the horrid start time of 8:09pm.

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Konner Wade saved his best performance of the season for the biggest stage in college baseball. Verrrrry impressive.

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Seth Mejias-Brean's two-run double in the 4th inning would be all the scoring the Wildcats would need.

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Balls to the Wall: Cody Keefer had a scary near-disaster on this attempted catch along the fence-line in left field. He awkwardly crunched his wrist against the wall, missing the pop-up.

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UCLA coach John Savage wasn't his usual reserved self tonight, barking at the umps and trying to extoll his team onward.

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With only four strikeouts on the night, Arizona pitcher Konner Wade (kneeling in foreground) also had to rely on the defense behind him, like here on this web gem defensive play by Mejias-Brean.

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Okay, we move on to Monday’s doubleheader now. Arizona is sitting pretty in Bracket One. Who will join them in the ranks of the unbeaten in Bracket Two?

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G’night.