June 16, 2001
Top-ranked Miami (53-12) ended Stanford's hopes of a national championship with a 12-1 victory over the Cardinal (51-17) in the College World Series championship game on Saturday at Rosenblatt Stadium. Stanford lost its second CWS championship game in as many seasons. The Cardinal finished the 2001 season with 51 wins, the third-highest win total in school history. Miami's Kevin Brown (2-5, 2B, HR, 5 RBI) and Kevin Mannix (2-3, 2B, 3 RBI) led the Hurricanes' 13-hit offensive attack. Tom Farmer (15-2) picked up the victory by scattering four hits and one run over the first 5.2 innings.
"Obviously, we're disappointed," said Stanford head coach Mark Marquess. "We didn't do much in the game today. They hammered us pretty good. They were definitely the better team today."
"But, I'm very proud of our team," Marquess continued. "I'm very proud of what they've accomplished. It was a heck of a season. Unfortunately, we came up one game short, but it was a great ride."
Miami jumped on top of Stanford with four runs in the bottom of the third inning. The big blow was a three-RBI double by Kevin Mannix down the right field line. The rally started when Mike Rodriguez was hit by a Mike Gosling pitch. Rodriguez moved to second base on a bunt single by Javy Rodriguez and scored on a double to right field by Danny Matienzo. The double was credited to Matienzo on a routine fly ball hit to right field that Cardinal rightfielder Carlos Quentin never saw with the ball landing about 20 feet over his head. The bases clearing double by Mannix followed a walk to Kevin Howard.
Miami added five more runs in the fifth inning on a three-run homer by Brown, an RBI single by Howard and a sacrifice fly from Mike Rodriguez.
Stanford scored its only run of the game in the top of the sixth inning when Arik VanZandt drew a one-out and walk and eventually scored on an RBI bunt single by Sam Fuld.Miami capped off the scoring with two more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning and one more in the eighth. Brown drove in two more runs with a double in the sixth and the Hurricanes scored an unearned run in the bottom of the eighth when Howard scored after Quentin failed to cleanly field a base hit to right field by Jim Burt.
Gosling (7-3) suffered his third post-season loss for the Cardinal, allowing seven hits and seven runs in 4.0 innings.
Ryan Garko (2-3, 2B) was the only Stanford player with more than one hit and finished the season as the team's leader with a .368 batting average. Fuld and Jeff Bruksch also earned All-Tournament honors for the Cardinal.
"Our season was pretty gratifying," said Garko. "It's very disappointing right now but if you go back and look at where everybody thought we would be at the beginning of the season, we have a lot to be proud of. We all grew as ballplayers and got a lot better. Hopefully, we are building for the future of the Stanford Baseball program."
The Cardinal had been a perfect 4-0 in elimination games during the 2001 post-season, prior to today's loss to the Hurricanes. Stanford had also swept through its CWS bracket with a perfect 3-0 record for the second consecutive year, while the Cardinal's nine post-season wins tied a school record.
The 11-run margin in today's game tied the largest ever in a College World Series championship game and was the worst defeat suffered by the Cardinal in 2001. Stanford managed only a season-low-tying five hits and committed two errors for the first time in 12 post-season games.
2001 COLLEGE WORLD SERIES ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM - (Most Outstanding Player) Charlton Jimerson, Miami, (C) Ryan Garko, Stanford, (1B) Kevin Brown, Miami, (2B) David Bacani, Cal State Fullerton, (3B) Kris Bennett, Tennessee, (SS) Chris Burke, Tennessee, (OF) Jeff Christensen, Tennessee, (OF) Sam Fuld, Stanford, (OF) Charlton Jimerson, Miami, (DH) Danny Matienzo, Miami, (P) Jeff Bruksch, Stanford, (P) Tom Farmer, Miami.