South Carolina is headed back to Omaha for the College World Series for the 10th time overall and the second season in a row. The Gamecocks will face Texas A&M on Sunday night at 7 pm.
How Texas A&M got here: The Aggies won the Big 12 Tournament, though of course they would have been in even if they hadn’t. They were thought to be in the running for a national seed, but just missed out to Rice and Texas. They were a regional host and beat Wright State, the 4 seed, 11-0 in the opening game. They followed that up with a 6-3 defeat of Seton Hall to advance to the championship game. It took the Aggies two tries to win their regional. They lost the first attempt to Arizona 7-4 but came back to win 3-0 in a game that was delayed until Tuesday.
In the Super-Regional Texas A&M traveled to #5 Florida State. They won the first game 6-2 and then were embarrassed in the second game 23-9. In the deciding game they dominated the Seminoles 11-2 to advance to Omaha.
Pitching: The projected starter is Junior Right hander Ross Stripling. Stripling has been a starter for two seasons and has good numbers. Here are some of the pitchers USC may see on Sunday night.
| Starter | W/L | ERA | K | BB | Opp Avg | |
| Ross Stripling | RHP | 14-2 | 2.29 | 107 | 17 | .200 |
| Relievers | |||||||
| App | ERA | Saves | K | BB | Opp Avg | ||
| Nick Fleece | RHP | 34 | 1.44 | 3 | 30 | 9 | .255 |
| Kyle Martin | RHP | 31 | 3.54 | 1 | 37 | 13 | .237 |
| Joaquin Hinojosa | RHP | 30 | 3.31 | 8 | 31 | 11 | .263 |
| Brandon Parrent | LHP | 24 | 4.21 | 0 | 29 | 17 | .270 |
| Estevan Uriegas | LHP | 19 | 3.60 | 0 | 16 | 8 | .250 |
The relievers tend to be right hander dominated. That’s probably because the lefties have worse numbers. Unless something unexpected happens, look for Stripling to pitch late into the game if they can make that happen.
Batting: The Aggies don’t have the most intimidating batting line up that the Gamecocks have seen all year, but they have some strong bats. Here are the raw numbers.
| Pos | Avg | HR | RBI | SB | |
| Tyler Naquin | RF | .390 | 2 | 44 | 6 |
| Krey Bratson | CF | .331 | 0 | 36 | 31 |
| Matt Juengel | DH | .309 | 7 | 50 | 14 |
| Jacob House | 1B | .307 | 3 | 51 | 4 |
| Kenny Jackson | SS | .283 | 2 | 28 | 4 |
The bottom line is that this Texas A&M team is good. Every team at this point is good. The Aggies have won 47 games, so they know how to win. The strength of their team is their pitching like Carolina. This could be a low scoring game, and it will probably be close, but there is no reason the Gamecocks can’t win the first game in the College World Series for the first time in the Ray Tanner era.
