Woodard, North Carolina Shut Down Tigers in CWS

Sunday's game marked the first time in the last 131 games that Clemson has been shut out. (Photo by Mark Crammer)

by Dan Scott - Correspondent - Sun Jun 18 22:27:07 GMT-04:00 2006

OMAHA, Neb. - If Clemson is to win that elusive baseball national championship this season, it's going to have to work overtime to do it.

Robert Woodard fired a 3-hit, complete game shutout at the Tigers Sunday night, leading North Carolina to a 2-0 victory in a winner's bracket game at the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

The game was played before 21,329 at Rosenblatt Stadium.

The win means North Carolina (52-13) advances to Wednesday's winner's bracket game. The Tar Heels need but one more win to move into the championship series.

Clemson (53-15) will face Cal State-Fullerton in a loser's bracket elimination game on Tuesday. The game is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m.

“We’ve faced adversity many times this season," said Clemson Designated Hitter Herman Demmink. "Every time we’ve had our backs against the wall, we’ve bounced back.”

Woodard was simply dominating Sunday. He struck out seven and walked only three in his 130-pitch outing. Of Clemson's three hits, one was an infield single by Stan Widmann and another a bloop to left off the bat of Brad Chalk.

"It was a little bit frustrating," said Clemson head coach Jack Leggett. "Woodard did an outstanding job. We just didn’t make enough hitting adjustments. The opportunities we did have we didn’t take advantage of."

The Tigers only seriously threatened three times in the game, getting runners at first and second with two outs in each of the fifth and seventh innings, and a runner to second with one out in the sixth.

But each time Woodard (7-1) was able to get out of the inning unscathed.

"We saw him (Woodard) last year and we saw him on TV this year, " said Clemson second baseman Taylor Harbin. "We had a good idea what he was throwing. He located well and kept us off balance. We just didn’t make the adjustments we needed to make offensively.”

Faris (9-3) was nearly as good for Clemson, pitching his first complete game of the season in a losing effort. Faris allowed just seven hits, struck out five and walked just one.

His only rough inning came in the third, when the Tar Heels plated their two runs. Back-to-back doubles by Reid Fronk and Josh Horton drove in the runs. Horton was thrown out trying to stretch his double into a triple, and Faris didn't allow another hit until the seventh inning.

"That’s about as well pitched game as you will ever see, by both kids," UNC head coach Mike Fox. "Robert (Woodard) didn’t pitch in regionals and he has had this built up for a couple weeks. His performance was masterful.”

Andy D'Alessio just misses the tag on the UNC runner. (Photo by Mark Crammer)

NOTES

- Chalk's single in the sixth inning extended his hitting streak to 15 games. Tyler Colvin's 26-game hitting streak came to an end;

- Mike Fox, the North Carolina head coach, won an NCAA Division III National Championship in 1989 at North Carolina Wesleyan.

- Sunday's game was the longest outing for North Carolina starter Robert Woodard since the junior threw a nine-inning complete game shutout against Virginia on May 13.

- Session six attendance was 21,329 raising the six-session, three-day total to 125,035; an average of 20,839.

- The dual complete-game efforts by North Carolina’s Robert Woodard and Clemson’s Stephen Faris marked the first time in 11 years that opposing pitchers went the distance. The last time it happened was June 2, 1995, when Jonathan Johnson of Florida State earned a 3-2 victory over Oklahoma’s Mark Redman.

- This marks the third consecutive year that a team not seeded as a national top-eight team at the start of the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship won its first two games at the College World Series. The Tar Heels hope that the 2006 CWS ends in the same way as the previous two years, when Cal St. Fullerton (in 2004) and Texas (2005) went on to win the national championship.

- Sunday night’s game was only the sixth CWS game in the last 25 years to last 2:15 or shorter: Miami 7, Maine 2 (2:04, 1982); Georgia 3, Mississippi St. 0 (2:07, 1990); Florida St. 3, Oklahoma 2 (2:06, 1995); Miami 4, Florida St. 2 (2:09, 1995); Rice 4, Southwest Mo. 2 (2:02, 2003); North Carolina 2, Clemson 0 (2:15, 2006).

- This marks the first time in five trips to the College World Series that North Carolina has started 2-0 in Omaha. Three of the previous four trips (1960, ’66 and ’89) resulted in two-and-out performances, while the 1978 series saw the Tar Heels lose their first game and rebound to win twice before being eliminated.

- Clemson and Cal St. Fullerton have combined for 25 appearances at the College World Series, but Tuesday’s elimination game will mark the first time the two storied programs have faced one another in Omaha.

- Sunday's game marked the first time in the last 131 games that Clemson has been shut out (2/209/05 vs. East Carolina[10-0]) and it was the third time the Tigers have been shut out in 31 College World Series games.

- This was the first time that a North Carolina team has pitched a shutout in the Men’s College World Series.

- Sunday's game was the sixth shutout in the last five years, a string that followed six-straight years without any shutouts.

- The three hits by Clemson were the fewest in a College World Series game since Jason Windsor of Cal St. Fullerton held South Carolina to three hits on June 19, 2004.

Clemson 0 (53-15)

Player AB R H RBI BB SO PO A LOB

------------------------------------------------------

Herman Demmink dh........ 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Brad Chalk cf............ 4 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0

Marquez Smith 3b......... 3 0 0 0 1 2 1 2 0

Tyler Colvin lf.......... 4 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 2

Taylor Harbin 2b......... 4 0 0 0 0 2 1 5 0

Andy D'Alessio 1b........ 3 0 0 0 1 0 11 0 0

Stan Widmann ss.......... 3 0 2 0 0 0 0 3 0

D.J. Mitchell rf......... 2 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0

Adrian Casanova c........ 3 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 4