Omaha, Neb. – Wet Miss, one of the last four teams invited to the NCAA Baseball Tournament, is now just one win away from the last team.
Mississippi beat Oklahoma 10-3 in the first match of the best-of-three men’s college world series final, with an unexpected arm, relief pitcher Jack Doherty running for the win. Sophomore, from Collierville, Tennessee, was forced to serve as a starter after the team used 1-2 aces in this championship series in March in Mississippi. Wright responded with his longest trip of the season, before leaving the mound to take a 4-1 lead in the sixth of five innings of perfect baseball and no outs at base. He was relieved to have a new batsman, Mason Nichols, who struck out five of the seven batsmen in two innings and took just one run off Dogarty’s ball.
The trio of wet Miss Pitchers – Dogarty, Nichols and sophomore Josh Mallitz – enjoyed the established cushions early as their hitting teammates scored two runs in the first innings and added one each in the second and third innings. The fifth-year senior and the last of Oxford’s rising batsmen, Mississippi folk hero Tim Elko, who blasted the 24th homer of the season, was the main attraction of the 4-5-5 night plate, the first four in 2009. A hit night for any MCWS batsman since then.
When teammates TJ McCants, Calvin Harris and Justin Bench blasted the homers one after the other at number eight, the first team to do so since LSU in 1998, the score was 8-2 and the game was essentially on top. .
Oklahoma squandered the opportunity that didn’t make a big match on paper, sending Jake Bennett to the mound to rest for a week, the pitch after the opening match of the series against Texas A&M on June 17. Wet Miss will now have number two starter Hunter Elliott and his perfect post-season record at the Mound on Sunday afternoon has a chance to win the title on a five-day break. If Game 3 is required on Monday, they will have Essay Dylan Delusia available for at least some work, as the entire game stopped on Thursday afternoon and pushed Wet Miss to the finals.
The University of Mississippi is not only one win away from its first MCWS championship, but also the school’s second NCAA-accredited national championship in any team sport. The women’s golf team won the university’s first title a year ago. The school has claimed three national championships in football from 1958-60, but none of them have been voted out by the Associated Press or coaches.
