Hurricanes Roll Lions, Win 28th Regional Title

By David Furones

Special to College Baseball Insider

 

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Four seasons of frustration for Miami fans accustomed to baseball dominance were eased in one night – and rather early in the night.

 

The Hurricanes, the No. 5 national seed, advanced to their first Super Regional since 2010 with a 21-3 mauling of Columbia in a winner-take-all finale of the Coral Gables Regional on Monday night at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field.

 

Miami (47-15), which set a school record for largest margin of victory in a postseason game, won its 28th regional title and advances to a Super Regional it will host against VCU, which won the Dallas Regional with a 3-1 victory earlier Monday.

 

The Super Regional will start on Friday. VCU, the Atlantic-10 champion, made it out as the fourth seed in the Regional. The Canes’ road to Omaha as they try to make their first College World Series since 2008, will only see them facing No. 3 and 4 seeds. They avoided second-seed East Carolina, which went 0-2 in the Coral Gables Regional, and only played Columbia and FIU.

 

After Miami was shut out for the first time all season with two hits in Sunday night’s loss to third-seeded Columbia, the offense, which entered the Regional ranked fifth in the nation in batting average and second in runs per game, experienced an epic revival.

 

“I was very proud of the way our team played today after last night and getting shut out,” Miami coach Jim Morris said. “We had to get ahead [early] in this game.”

 

UM’s 20 hits matched its total from the first three games. All nine starters in the Miami lineup had a hit by the fifth inning and 12 of the 13 batters hit safely.

 

Willie Abreu drove in five runs on a night where he blasted a three-run home run to right in the sixth that went halfway up a tall light post and drilled a two-run triple into the right-field corner in the fourth.

 

He was emotional and teary-eyed postgame and revealed why he cut his hair and missed team practices and workouts earlier in the week.

 

“This is actually one of the toughest weeks I’ve had in my whole life. My mom got real sick, and she had to be hospitalized [last] Monday,” Abreu said. “[The haircut] is for her. She had always told me, ‘Cut the Mohawk, cut the Mohawk,’ and the procedure they had to do – they had to cut her hair. So I did this for her.

 

“She actually woke up on Wednesday, so I’ve been talking to her ever since. She actually blew me a kiss, so it was pretty nice.”

 

David Thompson, the nation’s leader in RBI and Regional’s Most Outstanding Player, went 2 for 3 with three runs and two RBI

 

Danny Garcia (7-1), the top midweek starter for Miami, was able to cruise with a big lead. He struck out seven and surrendered three far-from-relevant runs on seven hits.

 

“It’s very tough pitching that type of game because you sit so long between inning with that many runs scored,” Morris said.

 

For Columbia (34-17), it was a season to be plenty proud of despite the result of its last game.

 

“It’s been a great journey to get here,” Columbia coach Brett Boretti said. “We performed at a consistent, high level all season.”

 

The Lions, the Ivy League champion, became the first Ivy League school to win three games in the NCAA Tournament since Harvard did it in 1974 and set a school record for wins this season.

 

“I’d like to say we’re happy to be here, but that’s not the way this team thinks or approaches playing,” said senior Jordan Serena. “I think we transformed the program a little bit since I’ve been here. The expectations are high and only getting higher. Three years in a row it’s been the best Columbia team in history, so we’ve just stepped that up year after year.”

 

It was evident the Miami bats weren’t going to stay dormant in the finale from the start.

The Canes hit around the order with four runs and four hits – two more than all of Sunday – in the first inning. They scored the first run when No. 3 hitter George Iskenderian doubled to bring home leadoff man Ricky Eusebio. Garrett Kennedy later had a two-run double and Brandon Lopez brought him home with a single.

 

After scoring one in the second and third, Miami doubled its first-inning outburst with eight runs in the fourth. Abreu hit his two-run triple and Collins brought home a pair with a double.

Miami is not taking VCU lightly.

 

“It just goes to show us that they’re a good team. Their Regional was tough. They had to beat Dallas Baptist, Oregon State and Texas,” said Zack Collins, who went 2 for 5 with two runs and two RBI. “We can’t come out here and think it’s a school that we’ve never heard of. They’ve obviously shown that they can beat good teams.”

 

Added Morris: “They’ve had a good program and this year they had a great year. To win that Regional, they have to be really good.”

 

Columbia used six pitchers to get through Monday. Boretti had gone to his fifth by the fourth inning.

 

“We were running low on pitching – no question about it,” Boretti said. “We had guys on short rest that were available. At the same time, we weren’t going to put anyone in harm’s way.”

 

Game Notes

·    It was the fourth time Miami scored 20 runs in a game this season.

·    Miami leadoff man Ricky Eusebio got on with a hit by pitch both of his first two times up.

·    Robb Paller reached base safely in his 36th consecutive game with an RBI double in the fifth.