As much as it pains me to pull for them, South Carolina repped the SEC well tonight in Omaha.
In an extra inning classic fit for the end to the venerable Johnny Rosenblat Stadium, the Gamecocks defeated the UCLA Bruins 2-1 for their university's first major national championship.
Their title keeps the baseball championship in the SEC, and ends the west's stranglehold on the College World Series championship. They are the first team from a state that isn't either west of, or borders, the Mississippi River to win the CWS since Miami in 2001, and only the third team to do it in the past 20 years (Georgia won in 1990, Miami in 1999 and 2001).
