[Cactus Jack]

For you guys that follow the CWS closer than I do, why does a win tonight all but guarantee the finals for our Cats?

A loss means going into the loser's bracket and playing Florida tomorrow at 6 pm in an elimination game. From there, you'd need to beat the winner of this game twice, with those games being played Wednesday and Thursday. In essence, you'd need to play four straight days and win each of the last three.

The winner of this game gets tomorrow off, so more rest for your team (and most importantly, your pitching staff).

I don't know the odds or statistics, but I'd have to imagine that this is the most high leverage game of the tournament as far as your team's chances of winning your bracket and getting to the final goes.

I guess I could see the argument that you'd rather win your first game than this one to avoid being in elimination mode for four straight games instead of three, but that extra game would be against another loser, and in theory, a weaker opponent. I'd still imagine that most who've pulled that off either got extremely hot late or threw off (i.e., threw their #2, #3, or #4 pitcher) against a weaker opponent in Game 1 and just got upset.


Hope I'm not butchering this one (and someone can fact check me) but I think this College World Series format began in 1998. From 1988-1997, it was the same as the current format but the final was a single game instead of the best of three. There have been some modifications to the seeding and Super Regionals in that span though.

In the history of the CWS, 12 teams have lost their first game and went on to win the tournament. Four have done so since 1980. Oregon State (2018) is the most recent. Southern California (1998), Oregon State (2006), and South Carolina (2010) are the remaining three.