It Is ON. The Florida Gators rush the field after Luke Heyman notched a ninth-inning RBI flyout to center field to win the game.

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CWS – Day One In Pictures

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OMAHA — Well there you go. It’s day one in the books for the College World Series. And we got a pair of 6-5 come-from-behind-in-the-ninth wins at the yard today.

We had a real nail-biter in game one as Oral Roberts rallied from a 5-2 deficit through eight innings to score four runs in the top of the ninth to take a scintillating 6-5 win over TCU. And in the night cap we had another come-from-behind rally as Florida overcame a 5-3 deficit with a couple of home runs and a deep RBI flyout to end the game with a one-run win over Virginia


THE FAST & FURIOUS FIVE
Five things that jumped out to me about the day at the College World Series.

1- So who’s in the best position after day one?… I’ve got Florida
No offense to the Cavaliers, the Golden Eagles and the Horned Frogs, but on this side of the bracket even going into today I thought the winner of tonight’s second game was going to be hard to beat twice. What will make it especially tough is if any team comes out of the loser’s bracket to face a 2-and-0 Gator team. And yes, I’m calling my shot that the Gators will get past ORU on Sunday night. Of course, ORU could very well come back to make me eat crow on that statement, which I will gladly do.

2- Speaking of being wrong, looks like it WILL be a home run-heavy CWS
This morning when I went on as a guest for 1620 The Zone, a local Omaha radio station, I was asked if I thought the bevy of home runs that we saw in the Regionals and Super Regionals would continue here in Omaha and I said, “Nope. This is the College World Series at the new stadium. It’s always been about pitching and defense.” Well as you saw, dingers played a big part of both games today as ORU hit two yard calls and Florida hit three bombs to help each of their teams forge their way to wins.

3- The Streak ends.
As I am sure they talked about ad nauseam during the first game, ORU’s Jonah Cox saw his 47-game hit streak come to an end on an 0-for-5 day at the dish. Of course, something tells me he will trade that hit streak for a W in the CWS. But it should be noted that Cox’s streak was the longest hitting streak in D1 since FIU’s Garrett Wittels had a 54-game streak that ended on the first day of the 2011 season.

ORU three-hole hitter Jonah Cox saw his hit streak come to an end today.

4- LSU and Tennessee fans, get ready to be late to your game
At the beginning of today’s second game I looked around the stadium and I saw a very small crowd with large amounts of seats open throughout the stadium. But lo and behold the official attendance was 24,801. The problem is that the CWS treats each game as its own “session.” So that means the stadium has to be cleared of fans and then it can be re-entered. Since there was only 90 minutes between games today, so as you might expect there was a huge throng of people waiting to be allowed into the second game. So for LSU and Tennessee on Saturday night, expect to be late to your seats, so matter how early you get to the stadium.

5- The P.A. system at Charles Schwab Field needs to be re-calibrated.
The speakers at The Chuck are making the voice of public address announcer Bill Jensen nearly indecipherable. It just sounds like a big bubble of low-treble noise. In fact, at one point before the second game, Mr. Jensen does what he always does and asks the two fan bases to sound off. When he said, “Virginia fans, let’s hear ya’!” the Cavalier fans were completely silent since it was really hard to hear what he said. And while the cameras were fixed on the UVa fans in the stands, hoping to catch them cheering wildly. Instead the camera just caught a small group of Virginia fans calmly talking to each other until they realized they were up on the jumbotron, then they started waving and yelling.


PICS.
Here are a handful of images from the first day of the CWS, most of them taken by Lady StitchHead.

ORU’s Ryan Folmar shakes hands with TCU head coach Kirk Saarloos before the Eagles’ first CWS game since 1978.
As a freshman making his first start in Omaha, TCU’s Kole Klecker acquitted himself quite well, giving up just one run in his 5.0 innings of work.
TCU’s Cole Fontenelle gets picked off first base by ORU’s Jake McMurray.
Mac McCroskey’s gives the horns to the ORU dugout crew as he approaches second base on his two-run homer in the sixth inning.
Two-hole hitter Justin Quinn went 4-for-5 today including a stand-up double in his second at-bat of the day.
All Name Team candidate Blaze Brothers watches his ninth-inning, three-run fencebuster take flight. And as you can see his teammates know it’s gone as well.
Brothers is met at home plate by a fired-up group of teammates.
… and you mighta seen this pic already either from my Twitter post earlier in the day or in Joe Healy’s post-game write-up, but this is Brothers getting near the dugout for the celebration with his teammates.
Arrrrrrgh. It was THIS kind of day for the Horned Frogs after they blew a late lead to ORU, sending them to the elimination game vs. Virginia.

Some local Omaha kids get a warm-up ball thrown to them by an Oral Roberts player.
Cade Kurland puts the tag on UVa’s Ethan O’Donnell as he tried to steal second base.
Hey, tag-about is fair play. UofF’s B.T. Riopelle gets nabbed at third after an epic throw from Casey Sauke in right field.
B.T. Riopelle got the late scoring started with an eighth-inning solo masher.

Wyatt Langford’s ninth inning solo shot pushed the Gators into a 5-5 tie as momentum had totally swung their way at the time.
This is the beginning of the Luke Heyman mob scene after he hit a deep RBI flyout for the game-winning “hit.”
The Virginia bench is despondent as they watch the Florida boys celebrate the jog-off win.
Buster Posey Award nominee Kyle Teel is stunned by the ninth-inning rally by Florida.

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