June 23, 2010

Game 9 Recap

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College World Series - Game 9 Notes

By Phil Stanton

CollegeBaseballInsider.com Co-Founder

The game that had a roller-coaster feel to it had that feel on its biggest play.

TCU trailed 7-5 with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the eighth. Matt Curry crushed a 3-2 pitch that looked to be a grand slam to center. But Florida State centerfielder Tyler Holt looked like he was preparing to catch the fly. He suddenly turned and watched the ball sail out of Rosenblatt Stadium to put the Horned Frogs ahead 9-7.

“When I hit it, I knew it was gone,” Curry said, “because I’ve hit some home runs and I usually know when I get them. I look and I’m all fired up. And I looked back out there and he’s camped underneath it. My heart sank in my stomach. I’m like, ‘There’s no way this ball’s not leaving.’ I just happened to look up, and that’s when I got fired up again.”

“Holt had me fooled,” said TCU head coach Jim Schlossnagle. “I almost dropped onto my knees in tears when I saw him camped under that ball. He was hoping maybe it hit the fence and he could keep somebody from scoring. I did not see the ball go out of the park. I just saw Holt not catch it.”

“The next inning, Holt got on first base,” Curry said, “and I asked him ‘Did you mean to do that? Were you meaning to scare me like that or did you just not see it?’ He said, ‘I never saw it off the bat. The twilight got me. So I was just camping, hoping I could hold some runs.’ I guess he just never saw it.”

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Curry’s grand slam was the 47th in College World Series history. It was the first since Kole Calhoun hit one for Arizona State on June 18, 2008.

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TCU has two wins in its first College World Series appearance. Since 1999, only two other teams have won at least twice in their initial trip to Omaha: Louisiana-Lafayette (2-2) in 2000 and UC Irvine (2-2) in 2007.

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Holt started his 199th consecutive game, the longest active streak in Division I.

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Florida State went 1-2 in its 20th trip to the College World Series. No team has made that many trips to Omaha without winning a national championship.