Rain in north Florida botched an otherwise action-packed Sunday of super regional action in this year’s NCAA baseball tournament, delaying the start of Florida State and Sam Houston State’s Game 2 for over seven hours. Florida and Wake Forest managed to get five innings of work in before a torrent of rain shooed the teams off the field for the rest of the night.
Wake Forest and Florida combine for 7 home runs in 2-day marathon super regional game
The Demon Deacons won their first ever super regional game on a walkoff two-run slam.
Play in the Gainesville super thus resumed at noon on Monday, with the Demon Deacons holding a tenuous 5-4 lead. The Gators tied things up at 5-5 on a sac fly in the top of the sixth, then Wake countered in the bottom of the seventh with a solo shot of their own. The Gators came right back with a JJ Schwartz bomb to left to tie it up at 6 runs apiece, and from there they remained deadlocked for yet another 11-inning affair.
Where Florida’s Ryan Larson walkoff singled in the super regional’s opening tilt, Wake Forest’s Ben Breazeale answered for the Demon Deacons in Game 2.
Gainesville Super Regional Game 2
— NCAA Baseball (@NCAACWS) June 12, 2017
11 innings. Ben Breazeale WALK OFF! #RoadToOmaha pic.twitter.com/9OQWx8twSM
A few things here:
- Wake’s first homer strikes the “I” in FLORIDA on the park’s scoreboard
- The Deacs’ second dinger drills a dang palm tree
- Wake Forest’s Johnny Aiello socks the last tater of the Sunday session and the first one of the Monday portion
- Florida’s JJ Schwarz nearly rockets one into the newly revamped O’Connell Center, where the Gators play basketball
- Ben Breazeale’s walkoff mash goes over the damn scoreboard
- Breazeale’s walkoff won Wake Forest the program’s first ever super regional game
Seven home runs. Two days to complete the game. Rubber match one hour after Game 2 ended. Game 3 also delayed by rain. An extremely irate pitcher. It doesn’t get any more college baseball than that.
