The Miami Hurricanes will be staying home for the College World Series.
Come to think of it, they’ll also be staying home for the NCAA super regionals.
A day after crushing the No. 15 national seed Florida Gators 19-1 in the Gainesville Regional of the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament, the No. 3 regional seed South Alabama Jaguars eliminated No. 2 Miami 7-2 on Sunday afternoon.
The 2021 season is over for the Hurricanes, who finished 33-21 overall and ended with losses in four of their five last games.
That’s what happens when your bats and run production are on life support. The Canes ended the season with only 15 runs in their final seven games, three extra base hits in the regional and 1 for 19 with runners in scoring position. They left 11 on base Sunday and ended the tournament 1 for 20 with runners in scoring position.
South Alabama (35-21) advances to a 6 p.m. Sunday game against USF. If the Jaguars win, they’d play for the regional title Monday afternoon. If USF wins, they’d win the regional and advance to a super next weekend.
Miami did get a pair of solo home runs by Yohandy Morales (fifth inning) and Alex Toral (sixth) Sunday. But the Canes could barely string together hits to lift them to another game Sunday night and extend their season. And when they did, the Jaguars shut them down.
UM had life with runners on first and second with no outs in the eighth, but reliever Tyler Samaniego, who replaced reliever Jase Dalton after Christian Del Castillo and Ray Gil led off with singles, got Toral to fly out. He then struck out pinch-hitter Carlos Perez and Jose Izarra to end the inning.
The Jaguars scored four runs in the third inning on home runs by Richard Sorrenti and Michael Sandle, a double by Santi Montiel and RBI-single by Ethan Wilson. All the runs came off UM starter and losing right-handed pitcher Jake Garland (6-4), who allowed four hits in three innings.
Sandle hit his second solo home run of the game off All-American closer Carson Palmquist to make it 5-2 in the eighth, and two batters later, Kaleb DeLa Torre crushed a two-run homer to ice the victory and send Palmquist to the bench.
South Alabama’s right-handed starter JoJo Booker (8-0) allowed two earned runs on four hits and five walks in 5 1/3 innings for the victory.
This story will be updated.
USF reigns in the rain to put Miami baseball on the brink of elimination