By Brian Ojanpa
The Free Press
May 27, 2007 01:48 am
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Top-seed Minnesota State’s baseball loss to No. 6 seed and fellow North Central Conference member Nebraska-Omaha in the opening game of the regionals last week was a bitter pill.
But MSU might take some solace in knowing that it lost to an underdog that continues to overachieve — despite being beset by some surreal setbacks.
UNO won the regionals, won its first game Friday with a walk-off homer in the NCAA Division II World Series in Alabama, and moves on to play their second Series game tonight.
On paper, UNO shouldn’t be anywhere near Alabama this weekend. But sometimes, out of adversity comes unexpected success, and UNO has had its share of both in recent days.
A day before the regionals, the NCAA hit the team with this: Starting center fielder Matt Boro and NCC Pitcher of the Year Tyler Cloyd had been ruled academically ineligible.
Reeling from that blow, the team headed for the regionals in Missouri, only to be tripped up again. Three other players were late for the bus, and per team rules, they
wouldn’t be able to play against MSU.
At this point, UNO, not highly regarded even at full strength, had all sorts of built-in excuses to roll over. But instead it chose to play with hell-bent, nothing-to-lose abandon against an MSU team that had handled UNO with relative ease in earlier meetings this season.
UNO dispatched MSU and went on to shock host school Central Missouri in the finals of the regional, where UNO infielder Evan Porter, who will play for the Mankato MoonDogs this summer, was named tourney MVP.
The dust had barely settled after that game when UNO was beset by an even more surreal development: Oops, the NCAA said. Your two guys shouldn’t have been declared ineligible, and are hereby re-eligible, effective immediately. Sorry, our bad.
As Cinderella stories with a few twists go, UNO’s is right up there.
Brian Ojanpa is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6316 or e-mail bojanpa@mankatofreepress.com.
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