Colleges

The 10th inning

By wire services
Published June 26, 2005

OMINOUS SIGN?

Take this for what it's worth because of the small sample size. The Series final became a best-of-three only in 2003, but the winner of Game 1 won both titles. In 2003, Rice beat Stanford in the opener 4-3 in 10 innings. Stanford won Game 2 8-3, but Rice won Game 3 14-2. Last year, Cal State Fullerton beat Texas 6-4 in the opener and 3-2 in Game 2.

Texas again proved adept at bunting. Saturday, Nick Peoples led off the game with a walk. Drew Stubbs' sacrifice bunt moved him to second. And after a groundout, Will Crouch's double brought home Peoples. In its first three Series games, the Longhorns attempted 10 sacrifice bunts:

JUNE18: Against Baylor, four advanced the runner and two preceded runs. On the fifth, the runner advanced because of an error and later scored.

MONDAY: Against Tulane, the Longhorns bunted in the first, second and third, advancing the runner in the first and second and scoring in the first. In the sixth, Stubbs' bunt led to a run.

WEDNESDAY: Against Baylor, the Longhorns attempted only one bunt, in the eighth. Peoples failed to move the runner. But reaching on a fielder's choice, he advanced to third on an errant pickoff and scored the tying run on a sacrifice fly.

"I saw some special on TV last night comparing me and him, and I'm like, "What are these guys doing? Are they serious?"'

- J. BRENT COX, Texas reliever on not being as good as Yankees closer Mariano Rivera; the Yankees took Cox in the second round of this month's draft

Texas' two homers can only be described as unusual. Entering the Series, it had hit only 49 homers in 67 games. The 0.73 per game ranked 115th among 283 Division I teams. Even with five in Omaha, the Longhorns still average only 0.76.

SATURDAY: Texas 4, Florida 2

GAME 2: 3 p.m. today, ESPN, 620-AM, 1010-AM

GAME 3: 7 p.m. Monday, ESPN, 620-AM, 1010-AM (if necessary)

[Last modified June 26, 2005, 00:34:18]