College Baseball World Series 2017: Louisville, Florida Advance in Sunday Action
The No. 1 Oregon State Beavers and No. 4 LSU Tigers started the 2017 College World Series with wins during Saturday's action, and three more ranked teams began their journey in TD Ameritrade Park on Sunday.
The No. 7 Louisville Cardinals squared off with the Texas A&M Aggies in the first game of Bracket 2, while the No. 3 Florida Gators will meet the No. 6 TCU Horned Frogs in a top-10 showdown in the nightcap in Omaha, Nebraska.
The double-elimination tournament features two brackets, and Sunday's games were the first in the second one. Sunday's losers fall to a Tuesday elimination meeting, while the victors advance to a winner's bracket clash. The full College World Series bracket is available on NCAA.com.
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With that in mind, here is a look at Sunday's results.
Sunday Results
No. 7 Louisville Beats Texas A&M, 8-4
No. 3 Florida Beats No. 6 TCU, 3-0
Recaps
Louisville 8, Texas A&M 4
Louisville continued the pattern of ranked teams taking care of business in their College World Series openers with an 8-4 victory over the SEC's Texas A&M.
The Cardinals did much of their heavy lifting on the offensive side in the early going with five runs in the second inning. Devin Hairston, Colin Lyman, Colby Fitch and Devin Mann drove in the five runs with singles and helped force Aggies starter Corbin Martin from the game before the inning even ended.
Martin was credited with the five earned runs and couldn't match his counterpart, Brendan McKay.
McKay—who the Tampa Bay Rays drafted with the No. 4 overall pick—wasn't spectacular either and allowed four earned runs in five innings. However, relief pitcher Sam Bordner rescued McKay after an RBI double from Blake Kopetsky and RBI single from Walker Pennington during the sixth inning and preserved a 5-4 lead.
The Aggies remained in the game after the disastrous second inning thanks to a strong showing from Brigham Hill out of the bullpen with one earned run in 3.2 innings, but Louisville added two critical insurance runs in the sixth.
That was more than enough for the Cardinals' strong bullpen considering its stellar record with a lead after six:
Bordner didn't give up a single hit in three innings of work, and Lincoln Henzman closed the win with a typically dominant ninth after Fitch's RBI double in the eighth to give Louisville early inside position in the double-elimination tournament.
Florida 3, TCU 0
While Louisville set the tone with its bats in the first game, Florida rode the arm of starting pitcher Alex Faedo to a 3-0 victory over TCU.
Faedo—who the Detroit Tigers drafted with the No. 18 overall pick—flummoxed the Horned Frogs offense for seven dominant innings. He struck out 11 and allowed a mere two hits and two walks before handing the ball to Michael Byrne for the two-inning save.
Even when the Horned Frogs got on base, Faedo found a way to eliminate them with his pickoff move, as NCAA Baseball shared:
Byrne ran into trouble in the eighth when he allowed two hits and the ninth when he allowed a double, but he emerged without allowing a run.
Florida didn't need much offense to support Faedo and Byrne, but it started the scoring in the first with an RBI groundout from JJ Schwarz. Christian Hicks' RBI single in the fourth and Nelson Maldonado's RBI single in the fifth made it 3-0 and drove TCU starter Jared Janczak from the game.
Cal Coughlin, Haylen Green and Nick Lodolo kept TCU within striking distance in relief of Janczak with four shutout innings, but it was to no avail against Florida's stellar pitching performance.
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