Last June, Nathan Kirby closed out the College World Series and fundamentally changed what it means to be a University sports fan. There is no disputing the University’s status as an all-around college sports power, but this is the first time we’ve won a championship so close to my heart.
I, like every fan, want to win every game in every sport, but there are some sports I actively follow and some I only really see from afar. I love to see we’ve won soccer or tennis, but I am more invested in the school’s success than in the sports themselves.
Since we had never won a championship in one of the big-three American sports, I could never really imagine winning, even though Brian O’Connor is possibly the best coach in college baseball and Tony Bennett is quickly climbing the ranks in basketball. However, it seemed as though no matter how good we were, there would always be an injury, a bad call, a bloop hit or a cold shooting night to keep us from ultimate success.
This was, perhaps, best embodied by the previous College World Series. Both Virginia and Vanderbilt were seeking their first win, guaranteeing a program would break through for the first time. Virginia was also a better team. Even though we lost, I was left with the feeling that given just a few more innings, we would have prevailed. After a disastrous inning in game one, we were only a hit away from coming back, and game three was decided by a freak homer on a pitch a batter wouldn’t usually be able to touch. Even though we were favorites and hot enough to win, we still couldn’t get over the hump.
With all the injuries this year going into the postseason and an underwhelming regular season, I watched the series thinking we could probably win a few big games. It was hard to imagine winning it all due to the simple fact that we were relying almost entirely on three pitchers in a format that seems designed to punish teams without pitching depth. We essentially needed to be perfect.
As amazing as our run to the championship was, the final series made it even more obvious that we were the team of destiny. We lost the first game, essentially a must win, leaving Haseley — who’d never made it five innings let alone five scoreless — Sborz and Waddell on extremely short rest. Kirby, coming off a season long injury, had the potential to make the near miss even more painful — he bore the scar tissue of the previous year’s meltdown and was put in a position where it was hard to imagine anyone succeeding. Looking back on the run, it was the kind of absurd storyline a drunken fan would come up with minutes after the previous year’s loss. It was too good to be true, but somehow, it happened.
If nothing else, this proves my fear is irrational — we are not fated for failure. Now, I am half expecting a basketball season where our depth is depleted by injury to the extent we are forced to burn Mamadi Diakite’s red shirt on route to a dramatic double overtime victory over the best Michigan State team of all time. Come April, I expect Derek Bard — the U.S. Amateur golf tournament runner up — to win the Masters over a resurgent Tiger Woods. I even expect us to beat Tech in football. We have won the College World Series, and the time for pessimism is over.
Christian’s column runs biweekly Fridays. He can be reached at c.hecht@cavalierdaily.com.
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