The top 17 most memorable moments from the 2016 NCAA Baseball Tournament

The 2016 NCAA Baseball Tournament was rife with nail-biters, upsets, rain delays, rainouts, extra-innings drama and more rainouts. This year’s College World Series was the first such occasion that all 17 final elimination games were required to decide winners. This year’s champion, Coastal Carolina, was the first team since Minnesota in 1956 to win their first CWS title in their first trip to Omaha.

Along the way to the Chanticleers’ win, countless in-game battles and games-within-the-game transpired. Nearly 140 separate baseball games in the space of a month can obscure many of the most remarkable, quirky and hilarious moments that attend college baseball, which enjoys a robust trade in ancillary hijinks. Just ask Arizona’s bench.

With so many innings and outs and strategic minutiae of a single tournament spanning four weeks and 17 different U.S. cities, it’s impossible to nail down the four or five -- or even six -- most memorable moments from the 2016 College World Series. But what about the 17 most memorable moments from the tournament? So glad you asked.

In no particular order, here are the 17 most memorable moments from this year’s NCAA Baseball Tournament:

Morrison had thrown 83 pitches of middle relief the previous Saturday in an elimination game against TCU. He had made a name for himself in the Chants’ bullpen all year, coming in late to mop up the final six (or fewer) outs, so it was surprising and a bit curious that Gary Gilmore handed him the ball to start Game 2 of the final round against Arizona. Nevertheless, Morrison dealt 103 pitches for 6 2/3 innings with 10 strikeouts.

When Gilmore pulled the plug, Morrison received an emotional farewell on the mound and a standing ovation from the Omaha crowd.

In the Louisville super regional, the hosts dropped their first game to the upstart Gauchos and were facing elimination in Game 2. The Cardinals carried what seemed like a safe 3-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth, and flame-throwing closer Zack Burdi was on the hill. But with one out and the bases loaded, backup catcher Sam Cohen stepped to the plate and launched a rocket over the right field wall.

That’s a freshman backup catcher punching his team through to Omaha for the first time in program history and doing so in the most impossibly dramatic fashion available to the sport of baseball.

If you watch this video three times in a row, this kid will subsume your soul.

Before they had ever made a music video, Arizona’s dugout was throwing mosh pits.

Robbie Medel also wanted you to know that these Cheez-Its are fire.

And yeah, the Wildcats are here to rock you.

Everyone remembers this game because nobody watched it. The eventual tournament champion Chanticleers had a rough super regional matchup with LSU in Baton Rouge, a notoriously hostile site for visiting teams. Coastal won the series opener the night before and had the Tigers on the ropes for a Sunday night Game 2.

The Chants had a 3-2 lead heading into the ninth inning -- which began just after midnight on the East Coast -- then LSU tied the game on a wild play that included a violent collision at first base.

In the bottom of the frame, Michael Paez chopped a single over LSU’s third baseman and tournament firebrand Anthony Marks sprinted for his life from second to home, sealing the 4-3 win.

Afterwards, Marks gave a sloshy, scream-filled post-game interview and the Chants were dancing off to Omaha.

On the eve of the tournament’s opening day, tragedy struck in Nashville as Vanderbilt freshman pitcher Donny Everett passed away in a drowning accident. The Xavier, Washington and UC Santa Barbara coaches had agreed to delay the start of the Nashville regional by a few days to let the Commodore players and coaches grieve, but Tim Corbin declined, saying baseball was the best antidote.

Before the Washington and UCSB game that Friday, the teams and fans held a moment of silence in remembrance of Everett, and, irony of ironies, Vanderbilt and Xavier ended up not playing the evening game, which was postponed due to weather.

You’re not experiencing deja vu. UC Santa Barbara had a roller coaster of a tournament that featured two dramatic walk-off home runs, the first of which occurred in the Nashville regional. After playing to a 2-2 stalemate in the bottom of the 14th inning against Washington, Busch blasted a solo homer into right and the Gauchos won, 3-2.

Let’s freeze that celebration right fast, shall we?

The first base line bullpen at LSU’s Alex Box Stadium features a wooden bench for players and ball retrievers. In the first inning of the Tigers’ regional matchup with Rice, Greg Deichmann knocked a bases-loaded line drive down the first base line that ended up under the bullpen bench. The stadium ground rules state that in this event the batter is awarded a double, but nobody told Owls outfielder Charlie Warren, who briefly raised his hands in confusion.

Play should have stopped dead there, but Warren dove under the bench when he saw the Tigers continue to round the bases. Deichmann came around for the score and finished off the inside-the-park grand slam, all because Rice’s outfielder continued searching for the ball instead of stopping where he was.

In the super regional around against Coastal Carolina, one of LSU’s ball girls sitting on the same bench fielded a live ball and threw it into the stands.

She’s a momentary hero if you’re an LSU fan, because she saved a potential triple there. Was it a fair ball? Yeah, it was a fair ball.

College baseball bench shenanigans are an internet genre unto themselves, not least because they can sometimes take a rather macabre turn. Take for instance Wright State, whose team bus hit a deer a few weeks before their regional tilt in Louisville.

From tragedy to farce, and thence to a mounted deer head named Gary sporting a baseball cap and sunglasses.

Last year’s national champions were eventually dropped from their own Charlottesville regional, but not before getting walk-off homered on by East Carolina’s Travis Watkins in the winners bracket game. Down 6-5 with a man on second in the bottom of the ninth, Watkins slapped a strong homer to left-center to hand the Cavaliers their first of two losses in the tournament.

That home run came on a day that saw no less than 54 home runs across the tournament, an exciting reminder that, no, power hitting has not abandoned college baseball.

It’s not too often in the college game that you witness a coach go full nuclear meltdown on the umpires, but that’s precisely what Elliott Avent did in the third inning of NC State’s elimination game against Coastal Carolina. LOOK AT THAT SPIN MOVE.

One assumes this had been building throughout the afternoon, because Avent lost his mind over a strike call. He just kept going and going, and for his troubles he received a well-earned ejection.

“Bro, you got that pic?”

“Totally, bro.”

“My dude!”

“Bro, you ready?”

“Yeah, bro, let’s handshake.”

Arizona was originally picked to finish ninth in the Pac-12. Instead, the Wildcats came within an out of winning the College World Series under first-year coach Jay Johnson. Though known for the West Coast style of play featuring bunting, aggressive base running and stifling defense, Zona reached Omaha thanks to an 11th-inning bases-loaded walk-off single against Mississippi State.

And with that, the Cats were the first team to punch their tickets to Omaha.

The Canes’ Edgar Michelangeli emerged as something of a lightning rod in this year’s tournament, and not just for his power hitting. In the Miami super regional rubber match against Boston College, Michelangeli sinned against the universe by admiring his seventh-inning grand slam just a little too much.

How dare he.

Or you hold a bowling competition in the clubhouse.

Or you work on your short game in the press box.

In Game 3 of the CWS Finals, a man sporting a Harley-Davidson shirt, backwards hat and shades caught a foul ball and kindly handed it to a braces-sporting young fan nearby. The kid was outrageously excited about the souvenir.

That’s fine, sure, but next time catch it yourself, kiddo.

Up 4-3, with two outs and runners at second and third. No pressure, Alex Cunningham. Just strike him out and win this thing. Not a big deal.

That is the most satisfying chest-pounding of the entire tournament.