June 17, 2002
Omaha, Neb. - Texas (55-15) held off a furious late rally by Stanford (46-17) for an 8-7 victory in a second round winners' bracket game at the 2002 College World Series in front of 24,971 on Monday at Rosenblatt Stadium, snapping Stanford's season-high 10-game win streak and handing the Cardinal its first 2002 postseason setback. The loss forces the Cardinal into an elimination game versus Notre Dame on ESPN2 on Tuesday, June 18 (6 pm, CDT/4 pm, PDT). Texas will have two days off before facing the Stanford-Notre Dame winner in the first game of the Bracket Two final to be televised by ESPN on Thursday, June 20 (6 pm, CDT/4 pm, PDT). Clemson is the only undefeated team in Bracket One and will face the winner of Tuesday's South Carolina-Georgia Tech elimination game on Wednesday, June 19 (6 pm, CDT/4 pm, PDT/ESPN2).
"This was a tough game for us, and we gave them way too much," said Stanford head coach Mark Marquess. "We gave them too many runners and then they got some timely hits. They won some big spots, and we didn't."
J.D. Reininger (2-3, HR, 4 RBI) homered and drove in four runs to lead the Texas offense, while Sam Fuld (3-5, RBI) had his 37th multiple-hit game of the season for the Cardinal. Fuld now has 106 hits on the season, two shy of equaling the school record of 108 co-held by Mike Dotterer (1981) and Troy Paulsen (1990).
Stanford trailed 7-2 before scoring twice in the top of the sixth and seventh innings, and once more in the ninth to nearly pull off the comeback.
Fuld had one of his three hits to start the sixth inning rally and moved to second when Ryan Garko was hit by a pitch for the 14th time this season. Both runners moved up a base on a wild pitch before scoring on consecutive sacrifice flies by Jason Cooper and Chris O'Riordan.Texas answered back with an insurance run it would eventually need in the bottom of the sixth when Tim Moss and Omar Quintanilla had back-to-back one out singles before Moss stole third and scored on a sacrifice fly by Reininger.
Stanford cut the Longhorn lead to 8-6 with a pair of runs in the seventh when Garko drove in Arik VanZandt and Chris Carter with a two-out, two-RBI single.
The Cardinal picked up a run in the ninth inning off Texas closer Huston Street when pinch-hitter Jonny Ash drew a leadoff walk, moved to third base on a pair of ground balls and scored on an RBI single by Fuld before Street struck out Garko to secure his 12th save of the season.Texas starter Alan Bomer (11-3) earned the win as the first of four Longhorn pitchers. Bomer scattered six hits and four runs over the first 6.0 innings.
Stanford reliever Ryan McCally kept the Cardinal in the game with the longest postseason outing of his career, limiting the Longhorns to a run and two hits over the final 4.1 innings.
Texas had jumped out to its 7-2 lead by scoring twice in the first inning, once in the third frame and four times in the fourth when the Longhorns knocked out Stanford starter and losing pitcher Tim Cunningham (10-3). Cunningham allowed seven runs on five hits, four walks and a pair of hit batsmen in the first 3.2 innings as he had his five-game win streak snapped.Tim Moss singled to lead off the bottom of the first inning and scored on an RBI single by Reininger for the first Longhorn run before Ryan Hubele drove home Quintanilla with an RBI fielders choice.
Texas made the score 3-0 in the third on a one-out solo homer by Jeff Ontiveros over the wall in leftcenter field, his 19th of the season.
The Cardinal picked up a pair of runs in the top of the fourth inning when the first four batters - Carter, Fuld, Garko and Cooper - singled to bring home a run. Stanford scored its other run in the inning on the first of two sacrifice flies by O'Riordan.
Texas erupted for four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning after Cunningham retired the first two batters. Kalani Napolean and Moss drew back-to-back two-out walks to start the rally. Both runners scored on the next play when Quintanilla singled to score Napolean and Fuld tried to throw Moss out going from first to third but skipped the ball by Cardinal third baseman Scott Dragicevich allowing Moss to score. Reininger followed with a two-run homer to rightcenter.
Quintanilla (2-4, RBI) and Moss (2-4, SB) both added two hits for Texas as Moss picked up his 40th theft of the campaign.
Garko (2-4, 2 RBI) and Carter (2-5) had multiple-hit games for the Cardinal. Garko is now 11-for-20 (.555) in six career CWS games, while Carter extended his career-high hit streak to nine games.
Stanford tied a College World Series single-game record with three sacrifice flies, while O'Riordan tied an individual CWS mark with his two sacrifice flies. O'Riordan also picked up the 258th hit of his collegiate career to move into a 10th place tie on Stanford's career list and started his 174th consecutive game.
"Our advantage lies in our maturity as a team," said O'Riordan when asked about his team's ability to fight back through the loser's bracket. "We're going to battle back from this. We've been down before this year and last year. We have a strong team that bounces back really well. If we get to play Texas again, it's going to be a couple of good games."
The 56th College World Series will conclude with a single championship game between the two double elimination bracket winners to be televised live by CBS on Saturday, June 22 (12:30 pm, CDT/10:30 am, PDT).