Yep, history happened here today. And in stunning fashion too.

DAY FOUR IN OMAHA

As I tweeted about earlier, have we all been cheering for the wrong Cinderella? Were we too “Stony’d” to pay attention to the other under-appreciated team in the field of eight? Kent State has seen Omaha go crazy for Stony Brook and also heard the crowd’s chants of “SEC, SEC, SEC” but never took their eyes off the job at hand. Today, they overcame a huge obstacle in eliminating the No. 1-ranked Florida Gators to survive another round.

Meanwhile in the second game, the Arkansas Razorbacks joined Arizona in the 2-and-0 Club after dispensing some old ghosts in taking down the defending national champions in the nightcap. The Hogs got one pitch more than the Gamecocks in a classic pitching-and-defense battle. .

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GAME SEVEN.

Anyone got any fingernails left? For each team, there was an endless amount of “Oh God! Oh God!” moments. Kent State jumped out with four runs in the first two innings, signaling quickly that they weren’t going to go down without a fight. In fact, screw that. They weren’t going to go down without a victory. After jumping out to a 5-1 lead on a heavy dose of early-count swings, the Golden Flashes would eventually have to hang on for dear life. The Flashes got four hits but zero runs in their last four at-bats. And the pitching staff nearly imploded – like starting the 9th inning with 11 straight balls outside of the zone – before settling down enough to escape a bases-loaded, one-out jam with a strikeout and a pop-up.

Arrrrgh! After popping up to right field, Justin Shafer can't believe the Gator season is over.

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LINESCORE:

UofF – 001 001 200 – 4  10  2

KSU – 130 100 00x – 5  12  1

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PITCHING:

WP: Ryan Bores, 10-3

LP: Hudson Randall, 9-3

Save: Josh Pierce, 3

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TOP HITTERS

Florida:

- Mike Zunino, 2-for-4, 2RBI

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Kent State:

- George Roberts, 2-for-4, 2RBI

- Jason Bagoly, 2-for-3, double

- David Lyon, 3-for-5, triple

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CONDITIONS:

Start time: 4:09pm

95 degrees

Heat index: 98 degrees

Sunny, winds blowing in from right field at 17-21mph

Duration: 3-hours, 6-minutes

Attendance: 17,866

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KNEE-JERK REACTION.

Great leapin’ pollywog! Who the hell could’ve seen THIS? I know the Flashes are Golden and gutty and battlers and all that other euphemistic crap that goes along with baseball. But this team from the MAC just beat the top-ranked team in the country on college baseball’s biggest stage.

And I have to admit to you guys that Florida has been my go-to team whenever I’ve been on radio shows and they ask me who I think will win it all. Yep, for five months now, Florida has been my pick. Not now. Common sense would say it’s South Carolina until they have officially been beaten for the second time. And the way they’re playing, that may not happen anytime soon.

But huge props to KSU. They came out aggressive and swung at a lot of first or second pitches from the Gator arms. They didn’t sit back and react. The bullpen was a little scary, I mean who out there wasn’t expecting Florida to score two or three runs in the bottom of the 9th? Talk about gutting out a win.

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NOTES:

- Today’s Game 7 starting temperature of 98 degrees heat index is the hottest starting temperature since June 11, 2001 game between Georgia and Tennessee, which ended up a Vols victory 19-12.

- As you probably heard, Kent State DH Jason Bagoly is playing with a heavy heart after the death of his mother prior to the College World Series. He’s going to fly back to Ohio tomorrow and go to the funeral later on in the day. Then he’ll fly back sometime after that.

- Coach Scott Stricklin on playing Bagoly today, “This has been a difficult time for our program, I was a little disappointed in not playing him on Saturday. To battle like he did and get that base hit off Crawford. It was unbelievable. That really gave us a lift. I think he needed that, this team needed that.”

- A report from the Doctor of College Baseball tells us that there wasn’t a lot of SEC love for the Florida Gators afterall. The Good Doctor was taking in the Kent State-Florida at The Blatt Beer Pub beyond the right field wall of The Big Tiddy and all of the South Carolina and Arkansas fans were pulling for the Flashes. Isn’t that against the law or something down there?

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GAME EIGHT.

Eventually, any and all magic will come to an end. Whether its the Breaking the Magicians Code dude wearing a mask or if it’s the Arkansas Razorbacks ending the magical, and almost mystical, 22-game NCAA tournament win streak of the Garnet & Black. Yep, for once, Carolina’s CWS Magic couldn’t overcome the odds, as the pitching of Ryne Stanek and Barrett Astin handcuffed the Gamecocks all night and allowed the R’Backs two early runs to hold up the entire game. In a day of stunning developments, I guess we shouldn’t be so slack-jawed over this one. This new stadium is providing some new magic in many ways.

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LINESCORE:

Arkansas – 100 100 000 – 2  6  1

So.Carol. – 000 010 000 – 1  4  1

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PITCHING:

WP: Ryne Stanek, 8-4

LP: Colby Holmes, 7-2

Save: Barrett Astin, 11

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TOP HITTERS

Arkansas: :

- Bo Bigham, 2-for-4

- Dominic Ficociello, 1-for-4, RBI double

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South Carolina:

- Evan Marzilli, 2-for-4

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CONDITIONS:

Start time: 8:14pm

93 degrees

Winds from South (right field) 17-to-27mph

Duration: 2-hours, 49-minutes

Attendance: 23,537

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KNEE-JERK REACTION.

I had a feeling Arkansas could give the usually light-hitting Gamecocks some troubles, especially if Stanek was on his game. These two teams rely heavily on the timely hit and as you saw, the UofA boys got the key hits when they needed and the ‘Cocks couldn’t. But South Carolina has plenty of pitching still to go and could easily recapture the magic once again. So don’t count out a rematch with the Piggies… maybe even two.

I know this isn’t the first time, but still strange to see small ball so prominent for these SEC behemoths, but that’s what we’ve come to in Omaha now. Arkansas used a sac bunt and a stolen base in helping to move their two runs across. But the Cocks got their run when Evan Marzilli sliced a triple to the centerfield wall, scoring Chase Vergason, who had reached second base on a sac bunt as well.

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NOTES:

- This is the first time since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams (in 1999) where the two teams that sit at 2-0 in their brackets are both non-national seeds.

- The Arkansas pitching staff now has a team ERA of 1.75 in the NCAA tournament, and has allowed just two runs over its last 32.1 innings of work.

- South Carolina has gone 27-2 over the past three seasons in the NCAA tournament, the best three-year NCAAs record of any team in history.

- Tyler Webb’s 5.1 innings of relief work tonight was the longest relief outing of his career and now has 14Ks in the last 11 innings of work with only four hits relinquished in that span.

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PICS

Day four of the College World Series through the lens.

Yeeeeeaaaahhh! It was hot. To quote Biloxi Blues, it was "like Africa hot."

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The heat immediately took a toll on Florida starter Hudson Randall (left). Coach Kevin O'Sullivan (right) would say in the post-game press conference that Randall "was completely fine in warm-ups"

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After exiting following the 1st inning, Randall was taken to the clubhouse, and immediately followed by the stadium medical staff, team doctors and eventually his parents too.

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A few innings later, Randall was back on the Florida bench and out of uniform. He seemed fine though.

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Kent State started its 3-run 2nd inning when Florida 3rd baseman Josh Tobias fumbled a sac bunt from Kent State's Alex Miklos.

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... and yes, the play was so important, we got the image from both sides. Here Tobias slides on his canasta after flubbing the sac bunt.

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Daniel Piggott plays a ball off the centerfield wall.

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After slicing that double to the wall, KSU's Jason Bagoly (34) is pulled for a pinch runner and given a hero's welcome by his supportive teammates. Bagoly is playing the CWS just days after his mother died.

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Even though Flashes reliever Josh Pierce admitted to being nervous, he was able to overcome some walk problems to get the high-pressure outs in the 9th inning.

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Part of the problem was plunking Daniel Piggott to load the bases with one out in the 9th inning.

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A batter later, Casey Turgeon flipped his bat, thinking he had ball four and an RBI, only to be overruled by 3rd base umpire Jeff Heinrichs for out number two.

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To end the Gator run, Kent State's T.J. Sutton caught the final pop-fly of the game a few feet short of the warning track, setting off the Golden Flashes' celebration.

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Coach Kevin O'Sullivan and the Florida bench is still in "stun" mode after the game.

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Ryne Stanek was on top of his game once again for the Razorbacks, hummin' some 90+ heat in the 90+ heat of Omaha.

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... and most times, his innings would end up looking like this as he walked off the field.

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Home plate umpire Perry Costello is making damn sure that Arkansas' Brian Anderson touches home plate with what would be the game-winning run.

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Former Stanford All American Jessica Mendoza gets her convo on with Ray Tanner.

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Hog outfielder Matt Vinson dives, but can't catch up with this gap shot from South Carolina's Evan Marzilli.

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... which allowed the Gamecock 2-hole hitter to round second on his way to a run-scoring triple.

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But Marzilli's RBI triple would be the only high point of the night for the Gamecocks as not even the rally-caps can conjure up any magic for them in the 9th inning.

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Razorback senior Bo Bigham strides off the conquering hero among the raucous Hog crowd after the game was done.

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Okay, enough. It’s two bells now. We move on to elimination Tuesday with UCLA and Florida State set to square off. See you then.

G’night.