The North Carolina Tarheels (50-15) take on the Texas Longhorns (49-18) on Monday afternoon in the first elimination game of the 2011 College World Series. The two teams face-off at 2pm ET with the game being broadcasted on ESPN and streamed-online on ESPN3.com.
Texas found their way into this elimination game by falling 8-4 to the Florda Gators on Saturday. North Carolina lost to Vanderbilt by a score of 7-3 Saturday night. The winner of this game will face the loser of the Vanderbilt-Florida game scheduled for Monday night.
The winner still needs to win their next four games in order to win Bracket #1 and advance to the best-of-three championship series. Texas has already played five elimination games in the 2011 NCAA tournament while this will be North Carolina's first elimination game this season. Texas faced elimination in their regional against Texas St, and then twice against Kent St. They also lost their first game in the super regional against Arizona State before having to win two in a row to advance to Omaha.
2011 College World Series displays last pure Men's championship
Vanderbilt (53-10) takes on Florida (51-17) at 7pm ET Monday night in the winner's side of Bracket #1. The games will be shown on ESPN2 and streamed-online on ESPN3.com. The winner will be in prime position to play in the best-of-three championship series starting next Monday. The next game for the winner wouldn't be until Friday and they'd just need one more win to reach this championship series.
Vanderbilt comes into this game as the most balanced team in the country. No. 1 seed Virginia and defending national champion-South Carolina are deservingly getting a lot of credit and notoriety in Omaha right now. But it's Vanderbilt that is currently ranked in the top 5 in the country in both batting average (.319 - 5th), and ERA (2.38 3rd). Vanderbilt's 7-3 victory against North Carolina was the closest game they've played in this entire NCAA tournament thus far. They won their regional by a combined 26-3 and their super regional against Oregon State by a combined 20-4.
Florida comes into this game after putting up five runs in four innings off Texas starter, and No. 12 overall pick in the recent MLB draft of the Milwaukee Brewers, Taylor Jungmann. It was the eight and nine spots in the batting order that sparked the Gators offense against the Longhorns with Daniel Pigott and Cody Dent leading the way.
Vanderbilt and Florida played four times this past season and Florida walked away with three victories. Florida seemed to have Vanderbilt's number so far this season and they're hoping that continues at the College World Series.