Early exit doesn’t dampen Dogs|[06/19/07]
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, June 19, 2007
OMAHA, Neb. – There are 293 teams that play Division I baseball.
Of those, 229 wrapped up their seasons last month with the end of the regular season and conference tournaments. Forty-eight more put their gear in storage two weeks ago at the conclusion of the regional round of the NCAA Tournament.
A lucky 16 advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals and called it a great season. Half of those got to live the dream and advance to the College World Series.
There still are six teams vying for a national championship this week at Rosenblatt Stadium. Mississippi State and Cal State Fullerton are not among them. State was eliminated Sunday with an ugly 12-4 loss to Louisville, while the Titans fell to UC Irvine 5-4 in 13 innings on Monday.
Still, Mississippi State was among the fortunate to play in Omaha. Many teams never get here. Louisville, for example, was making its first trip since the CWS started in 1947.
For the Bulldogs, it was the eighth trip in 36 years and first since 1998. With the rise of programs like Louisville, Oregon State, Rice and UC Irvine, along with the challenge of going through tradition-rich programs like Cal State Fullerton, Arizona State and the rugged Southeastern Conference, it’s become harder than ever to get this far. That’s a fact Bulldogs coach Ron Polk hopes isn’t lost on people when they evaluate MSU’s season.
“It’s been hard every year since Georgia Southern in 1973. We had to bring one set of uniforms,” Polk said. “There’s 293 Division I schools and it’s down to eight. So all eight have to take pride in getting here.
“That’s the bad thing about getting here, is you’ve got 64 teams and 63 are down in the dumps.”
Mississippi State was among the last teams into the NCAA Tournament field of 64, hurting itself with a dismal late-season stretch of eight losses in 10 games. The Bulldogs pulled it together in time, though, to sweep through the regional and super regional rounds and earn the trip to the CWS.
Once there, things quickly fell apart. After taking a 4-0 lead in the second inning of the CWS opener against North Carolina, the Bulldogs scored only one run in the next 12 innings. Carolina rallied for an 8-5 win to drop the Bulldogs into the elimination round, where Louisville smashed four home runs in its victory.
“I was disappointed. Disappointed in myself,” said Chad Crosswhite, a sophomore right-hander who started against Louisville and was tagged for five runs and seven hits in only 2 1/3 innings. “That’s not the way you want to start a game you’ve got to win. I left some balls up and they crushed them.”
While a trip to the College World Series is anything but a given these days, the Bulldogs are primed for another good season in 2008.
Four position players who started Sunday’s game – Brandon Turner, Russ Sneed, Connor Powers and Jet Butler – are freshmen.
Relievers Ricky Bowen and Greg Houston are freshmen, and Aaron Weatherford is a sophomore. All three saw playing time in Omaha.
State also has 10 freshmen on the way that includes Porters Chapel Academy standout Michael Busby, along with catcher Cody Freeman and pitcher Paxton Pace, who led West Lauderdale to a No. 2 national ranking this season.
“I learned so much this year, and so much about the guys around me,” Crosswhite said. “This year, especially with the older guys helping us, it teaches us to keep working. Someone tells you you can’t, you say you can.”
For a number of Mississippi State players, this was the end of the line.
Ferriss Trophy winner Edward Easley and second baseman-turned-center fielder Jeffrey Rea, MSU’s all-time hits leader, are among eight upperclassmen who were either drafted and are likely to turn pro, or who are graduating. For them, going two-and-out in Omaha was a bittersweet ending to a dream season.
“It’s all about who gets hot. All eight teams in the College World Series are hot, and it’s who gets the hottest,” Rea said. “I had a great career and I was proud to play baseball at Mississippi State.”