College World Series: UCLA Bruins Take The Title With a 8-0 Win over the Mississippi State

Jun 25, 2013; Omaha, NE, USA; UCLA Bruins celebrate with the championship trophy after game 2 of the College World Series finals against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at TD Ameritrade Park. UCLA defeated Mississippi State 8-0. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports /

In game two of three in the CWS Finals, UCLA proved they deserved to take their first ever baseball national championship back home.

The runs started in the bottom of the first, Filia hit a sacrifice fly to right, scoring Carroll who was hit by a pitch. Again in the bottom of the third Fllia hit a sacrifice to the pitcher, scoring again Carroll. Valaika then singled to right scoring Kramer. 3-0 UCLA lead.

The runs for the Bruins weren’t done there. In the bottom of the fourth Regis singled to center, scoring Williams who was hit by a pitch to get on base. Kramer then hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Regis who was on third. 5-0 Bruins lead.

The Bruins waited an inning before scoring again. Filia, a name we’ve heard fairly often tonight singled to center scoring Regis who reached on an infield single. 6-0 lead.

This score stayed the same until the bottom of the eighth. Filia was a serious factor in this game, who singled to right to score Bono and Carroll, and bring the Bruin lead to eight.

UCLA’s shutout was a huge part thanks to pitcher Vander Tuig, who went eight innings, allowed five hits, no runs and recorded six strikeouts. David Berg then came on in the ninth and recorded a strikeout and sealed the win and championship for the Bruins.

Miss State’s pitching fell apart. They went through five pitchers, only one of which went more than three innings. As a total they gave up 12 hits, eight runs (7 earned) and could only record five strikeouts.

But their hitting was nonexistent as well. The Bulldogs only managed five hits, couldn’t get a run across and lost the championship in two games. They had one run throughout those two games, which is completely uncharacteristic of the Bulldogs.

With all that said, that just means UCLA deserves more credit. They managed to maintain the Miss State bats and stayed true to their style of small ball play, which ultimately brought the first baseball national championship to UCLA. Congrats, Bruins!