Texas’ Season Ended On A Popup Lost In The Lights With Two Outs In The 9th Against Stanford

While much of the sports world was focused on Denver on Monday night, where the Nuggets won their first NBA championship with a 94-89 win over the Miami Heat, Texas and Stanford were playing for a spot in Omaha at the Men’s College World Series.

After splitting the first two games of their super regional in Palo Alto, the two teams still hadn’t separated themselves through 8.2 innings in the third game of the set to decide who would advance. Stanford put runners on first and second with two outs, but Texas was able to get a pop-up that seemed destined to send the game into extra innings.

However, the entire Texas team lost the sky-high pop fly in the lights, watching it fall to the outfield grass in front of the right fielder, who was standing there helpless.

Stanford’s runner on second did his job, running it out until the umpire made the out signal, and to his surprise that hadn’t happened when he got to home plate to score the winning run, taking off as his teammates chased him to celebrate their trip to Omaha. It is an all-time thrill of victory/agony of defeat moments, as Texas’ entire team seemed to be in shock, all collapsing to their knees trying to process how that was how their season ended. It is as brutal a way to go out as there is and just a gutting feeling for the right fielder and everyone else who just flat out lost the ball off the bat and could never find it in the worst possible moment.