Watching the College World Series on TV is nice, but nothing beats being there.

Vicksburg residents Ben Smithhart and Craig Brown made the 13-hour drive to Omaha, Neb. to see the College World Series and will be rolling the dice when they arrive.

Neither has tickets for the event and they will try to buy them in Omaha. The NCAA sells 5,400 general-admission tickets in the outfield for each game on a first-come, first-serve basis starting two hours before each game. Prices on ticket site stubhub.com ranged from $12.99 all the way up to $230 for seats near home plate.

The school announced on Tuesday that it sold out of its allotment of 700 tickets, of which only 500 were made available to Eagle Club members.

With USM playing Texas in Sunday’s final game at 6 p.m., Smithhart knows that CWS fixture Texas will bring a big crowd. Texas has been to Omaha 33 times and has won six CWS titles.

“We’re going to have to take our chances,” Smithhart said. “We know there’ll be a wide range of tickets for sale there and that with Southern Miss playing Texas, it’s going to be one of the harder games to get into. We just hope we can find some we can afford. We’re going to do what it takes.”

Smithhart, a devoted Southern Miss fan and Brown, a South Louisiana transplant who is an LSU backer, couldn’t resist the pull of history as the Golden Eagles make their first-ever trip to Rosenblatt Stadium.

The Golden Eagles (40-24) have made a cinderella run after losing in the C-USA championship game at home to Rice. They beat Georgia Tech twice in the Atlanta Regional and then shocked Florida in the super regional to earn a bid to Omaha.

“We were really lucky to get in,” said Smithhart, whose brother B.J. is the St. Aloysius football coach. “This is about the least talented team we’ve had. We’ve had good teams that everyone expected to do more, but didn’t. I just think we got hot at just the right time.”

The two friends left after work on Friday and will pull into Omaha around 4 a.m. Because of work, both intend to return on Monday.

“It’s going to be a lot of driving, but it’s going to be worth it,” Smithhart said.

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Contact Steve Wilson at swilson@vicksburgpost.com