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Bright sunshine, great plays and surprising results characterized the week of the College World Series at the Charles Schwab Field diamond in Omaha, Nebraska. This led to the decisive triptych for the assignment of the NCAA title and two unexpected protagonists such as Oklahoma and Mississippi will contend for it.
Oklahoma has made a clear path to Omaha, 3 games and as many victories dragged by a superlative mound (26 strikeouts obtained and only 2 bases balls granted) and by a decisive attack in crucial moments led by the three stars Peyton Graham, Tanner Tredaway and Jimmy Crooks with an overall batting average of .446, 2 home runs and 11 runs at home. Oklahoma is on the hunt for its third NCAA title after those, long gone, in 1951 and 1994. But especially after the softball girls’ victory a few weeks ago, look for a historic encore in the same year and this would be an absolute first in history. NCAA.
The opponents will be the Mississippi Rebels who are chasing their first national title in baseball after a regular season played well (1st place in the ranking in mid-March) but continued badly with a strong decline in internal challenges at the Southeastern Conference that saw the boys of the coach paisà Mike Bianco to enter for the broken of the cap among the 64 teams called to participate in the final NCAA tournament. The Rebels switched gears with 5 consecutive wins between Regional and Super Regional eliminating Miami, Arizona and Southern Mississippi arriving in Omaha in great shape which allowed them to obtain the 3 victories necessary to enter the 2 finalists. Curiously, coach Mike Bianco’s boys would keep the title in Mississippi, where baseball is a religion, since last year it was won by eternal rivals from Mississippi State.
Let’s open a small parenthesis on the big disappointments of these College World Series which are certainly Texas, Stanford and to a lesser extent Arkansas which fought to the end forcing Mississippi to a game from inside or outside. The long-awaited paisa Sonny DiChiara of Auburn also underlined, who did not perform according to the expectations of the eve (3 out of 12 in the box and no points beaten at home) perhaps also due to the great media attention placed on him. The other paisa David LaManna did better (5 out of 12 batting with 2 rbi and a home run) but Notre Dame was also soon eliminated by Texas A&M.
To close, let’s hazard a prediction and say Oklahoma if only because Mississippi has played its ace on the mound Dylan DeLucia in the decisive challenge (complete game shuout with only 5 valid hits and 7 strikeouts) won 2-0 against Arkansas a few hours ago and will not have it available for the final if not perhaps in a possible race 3.
Andrea Palmia was born in Bologna on April 4, 1968 and lives in the Emilian capital with his wife Aurora and two-year-old daughter Lucia. Graduated in Pedagogy with an experimental thesis on ultras groups, he has been working since 1995 as a professional educator with mentally and physically disabled users. Passionate about sports in general and in particular the American ones, he has always had a dream in the drawer to be a sports journalist. From baseball played in the courtyard of the condominium with a discolored bat to matches at the Gianni Falchi stadium with Roberto Bianchi and Pete Rovezzi’s home runs, the step was short. Fortitude in his DNA, he nurtures an irrational passion for the “losers” or better for the “tormented” sports stories made up of few highs and many lows.
