Oxford: Miami does indeed bounce back

By Doug Kroll - June 12, 2006

The youngin's on the 'canes have continued Miami's postseason theme; the freshmen are carrying this team and the future looks very bright for the green and orange. After one of the more disheartening losses to date the night before, Miami bounced back with a huge one, dominating the Rebels from the get go. Danny Gil in just his fourth career start, tossed a career high 6 innings and for the second straight start, did not allow a run.

Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American Jemile Weeks hit two homeruns tonight, his 2nd and 3rd of the weekend. After having 3 homeruns in the first 60 games, he has gone yard 3 times in 2 nights. All 6 have been from the right side for the switch-hitter. Weeks drove in 5 runs in one of the most impressive freshman performances in Miami history, not bad when you consider they have played 234 post-season games.

It was also only the 9th time in those 234 playoff games that Miami shutout an opponent and won. The last time was in the 2003 Coral Gables regional when J.D. Cockroft 1 hit FAU and Miami won 1-0. In the last 25 years, Miami has only had 4 shutout wins in 181 playoff games through that time period. What the Miami pitching staff did tonight was very impressive to say the least. Gil, Jon McLean and Chris Perez shut down a team that put up 11 runs and 13 hits the night before. In any of the shutouts Miami has had in their prestigous postseason history, they never shutout a team who they had played the night before.

So Miami gets the job done and they won the coin toss to be the home team tomorrow. This scene must be eerily familiar to those here in Oxford. Last year, they came back against Texas in game 1 to win (just like this year), lost game 2, lost the coin flip and will be the road team tomorrow. The Rebels will have to change the pattern if they want to head to their first CWS since '72.

Now each team is 1 win away from Omaha, and for Miami, it would be 22 times since 1974. I'll be back tomorrow with a preview of the pitching matchup. It's a freshman for Ole Miss and a sophomore for Miami. Is this not what baseball is all about or what? Not sure if i'm going to be able to sleep tonight but it's going to be something that i'll never forget tomorrow. Thanks to Chris for keeping updates throughout the night while i was on the air, it's a nice 1-2 combo here in Oxford! Until tomorrow...

Doug K.