Notebook: Sizing up ND's part of the bracket in College World Series
For the 16th straight College World Series, the Atlantic Coast Conference will have at least one representative in the eight-team field.
The streak remains alive thanks to Notre Dame (40-15), the team among the nine NCAA Tournament qualifiers from the ACC with the unlikeliest and most contorted road to Omaha, Neb.
And the only one to get there.
After advancing out of the Statesboro (Ga.) Regional, instead of host and 16 seed Georgia Southern, Notre Dame stunned prohibitive tourney favorite and No. 1 Tennessee two games to one at the Knoxville Super Regional this past weekend
The Irish were welcomed home Monday night at Frank Eck Stadium by a small group of fans that included ND head football coach Marcus Freeman.
They’ll be back on the road Wednesday to begin double-elimination play Friday night at Charles Schwab Field against CWS blueblood Texas (47-20). The Longhorns are one of only four national seeds to survive the Regional and Super Regional phases of the 64-team tourney.
Game time is 7 p.m. EDT, and ESPN has the telecast.
The six-time national champion and 38-time CWS qualifying Longhorns are the No. 9 seed. Unseeded Notre Dame, a third-time CWS participant seeking its first national title, is the second-highest in the eight-team field in RPI (fourth, to No. 2 Stanford), and holds the best record in the CWS field against the Top 50 competition (19-8).
The Irish, best among the eight CWS teams in staff ERA (12th, 3.95) have already faced three of the nation's top 10 home run hitters and and eight of the top 20. But on Friday night they'll get No. 1 in Texas first baseman Ivan Melendez and the one with the most creative nickname — "The Hispanic Titantic".
The National Player of the Year's 32 homers broke the NCAA Division I record previously held by Kris Bryant since college baseball adjusted its batting standards (BBCOR) in 2011 to rein in a power imbalance.
He also leads the nation in RBIs with 94 and slugging percentage (.887).
The way the College World Series format works is that the eight teams are split into two four-team/double-elimination brackets. Unseeded Oklahoma (42-22) and fifth-seeded Texas A&M (42-18) join ND and Texas in Bracket 1.
Bracket 2 comprises No. 2 Stanford (47-16) and 14th-seeded Auburn (42-20), two teams that punched their tickets on Monday, as well as unseeded Ole MIss (37-22) and Arkansas (43-19). The Rebels are believed to be the last at-large team selected into the original 64-team field.
There’s no intermingling of the two brackets until each has determined a survivor. The top team from each bracket then meet each other in a best-of-3 final series June 25-27.
Defending champ Mississippi State, which edged Notre Dame in last year’s Starkville Super Regional, finished dead last in the SEC this season at 9-21 in the league and 26-30 overall and did not make either the SEC or NCAA tourney fields.
Power surge
There’s waves of irony in Notre Dame setting the single-season school record Sunday for home runs in a season.
• The guy that put them over the top with home run 74 — grad senior catcher David LaManna — had one homer all season coming into ND’s 7-3 ambush of No. 1 Tennessee in the deciding Game 3 of the Knoxville Super Regional.
Third baseman Jack Brannigan blasted his 12th of the year and 75th of the season for the Irish one batter later. OF/DH Jack Zyska leads the team with 13.
• The record came against a Tennessee team that leads the nation in both homers with 158 and in team ERA (2.51). And no one’s even closer in either case, Maryland is second in homers with 137, while Texas — ND’s opening opponent in the CWS — is tied for third with 128 (but ninth in homers per game).
In ERA, Southern Mississippi is a distant second at 3.29, with Northeastern third at 3.61.
• The record comes a year after slugger Niko Kavadas set the Notre Dame single-season school record for home runs in a season with 22.
Kavadas was an 11th-round draft choice of the Boston Red Sox last summer. Currently he’s slashing .253/.430/.482 for the Class A Salem (Va.) Red Sox in the Carolina League, with more walks (45) than hits (41) in 162 at-bats over 50 games.
He has seven homers, tied for the team lead, and a team-best 31 RBIs. His .911 OPS is second in the Carolina League and his .430 on-base percentage is third.
Super Regional Superlatives
Freshman Jack Findlay on Sunday became the fifth Notre Dame player to register a pitching win in the NCAA Tournament’s Super Regional round since its introduction into the playoff format in 1999.
Two others were also freshmen — Grant Johnson and Chris Niesel — in knocking off a top-ranked Florida State team in the Super Regionals in 2002. Current Irish reliever Aidan Tyrell got a win as a starter against Mississippi State last season, while senior reliever Alex Rao was credited with the win in Friday’s 8-6 win over Tennessee.
Johnson and Niesel were selected in the second and ninth rounds respectively of the 2004 Major League Draft after their junior seasons.
McLinskey pitches in
Seton Hall transfer Ryan McLinskey was enjoying plenty of success in his first year in an Irish uniform when an arm injury that required Tommy John surgery ended his season and perhaps his college career in late April.
At the time, the 6-foot-1, 195-pound right-hander was Notre Dame’s most effective reliever was a 2.42 ERA and three saves with a 39-to-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
He’s since taken an active role on the team as a bullpen manager, getting the relievers focused and ready to come into games. Notre Dame coach Link Jarrett mentioned him Sunday for having Alex Rao and Jack Findlay mentally dialed in as early as the first inning of ND’s 7-3 victory over Tennessee.
Full CWS Bracket
Bracket 1
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