C-USA Finale

The Conference USA baseball race is going right down to the wire. Heading into this weekend, four teams have a shot at the title, and those four teams are playing each other. It's hard to ask for a better regular season finale.

Tonight, I watched one of college baseball's most dominant pitchers this season, UH's Brad Sullivan, totally dominate a ranked TCU team (one of the four teams in the race). He pitched a one-hitter effortlessly, striking out nine, and being backed up with some excellent defense (he faced 28 batters despite 1 hit and 3 walks, thanks to double plays) and just enough hitting. It was the most impressive college baseball pitching performance I've seen at Cougar Field. It was good to see him bounce back, after his only rough outing of the season.

The Coogs are basically in control in the C-USA race. If they sweep this weekend, they win the conference. If they win two of three, they win the conference unless Louisville sweeps their series (Louisville beat East Carolina tonight, to remain one-half game behind UH, but I would not expect Louisville to sweep a solid EC team at EC). With one game down, I like their chances to win the conference and head into the tournament as the top seed.

In any case, tonight's game was a real treat: beautiful weather, both teams played well, Sullivan gave us our money's worth and more, and the game took just under two hours (unheard of in college ball).

The rest of the weekend should be fun.

[Posted at 22:04 CST on 05/16/02] [Link]