Longhorns Outlast Eagles in Longest NCAA Baseball Game

By Mike in College, Featured ⋅ May 31, 2009 at 8:21pm ⋅ Post a comment

Update: Eagles lose to Army 4-3, and are eliminated from the College World Series.

Regional host and overall #1 seed Texas needed 25 innings to defeat Boston College 3-2 in the College World Series. Texas is 2-0 in the regional after the win and the Eagles fell to 1-1 and face Army in a loser goes home game in the double elimination format. Should BC win that game, they would then have to defeat unblemished Texas twice to survive the regional.

BC had previously defeated Texas State 8-7, needing six ninth inning runs, for their first NCAA win in 42 years, in what is their first appearance in 35 years. The 25 inning marathon took seven hours and three minutes to complete and saw other NCAA records fall and other impressive performances.

BC closer Mike Belifore threw 9.2 innings of shutout relief and struck out 11 while yielding only three hits. Texas closer Austin Wood threw 13.0 innings in relief, including 12.1 without a hit, and ended his outing with two hits, four walks allowed, and 14 K’s. BC and Texas combined to set a number of records: 42 strikeouts, 222 chances, 69 assists, 192 plate appearances, and 171 at bats. Texas set records for at bats (91), plate appearances (103), chances (115), putouts (75). Texas’ Preston Clark recorded 33 putouts and Texas’ Travis Tucker and Michael Torres each had 12 at bats, all new records.

Each team used all of their position players, but combined to use only 10 pitchers: Texas needed only three to get through the 25 innings. The Longhorns outhit the Eagles 20-8 and committed three errors to none for Boston College. After BC tied the game in the sixth, the teams combined for the equivalent of two full games without a run before Texas won the game in the 25th.

The previous long game was a 6-5 win for Louisiana-Lafayette over McNeese State on March 27, 1971.

Tags: Boston College, College World Series

Discussion

2 comments for “Longhorns Outlast Eagles in Longest NCAA Baseball Game”

13 innings in relief? totally ridiculous. the pampered pitchers of today would never ever pitch that long in a game

Posted by KC | June 1, 2009, 5:30 pm
I agree. He threw 169 pitches all the while allowing only the two hits and four walks and K’d 14, not to be repetitive. This is their CLOSER! BC’s closer had a respectable 9.2 shutout innings. I read today that Wood threw up in the midst of it due to intaking fluids too quickly. He said his arm felt fine until he started icing it, but was on cloud nine all day. I don’t think it’s the pitchers so much as the organizations. When the arm is worth $50M, you want to take it easy on them. Back in the day, when money wasn’t as large a factor (remember baseball was only their summer job), they could obviously throw till their arm fell off, who cared.

Posted by Mike | June 1, 2009, 6:26 pm