Thoroughbreds

TigerBlog watched quite an interesting baseball game Monday night. 

It was an elimination game between Murray State and Duke in the NCAA tournament, with the winner to head to Omaha for the Men's College World Series and the loser to go home. Murray State was up 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth, with one out and a runner on first for Duke. 

The batter hit a ground ball to the shortstop, who flipped it to second to try to start a double play. The baserunner's slide took down the second baseman, who was unable to get a throw off to first. 

Two out. Runner on first. One out away. 

Ah, but then the second base umpire ruled that the second baseman had been interfered with, resulting in an out call at second and against the batter at first. Game over. 

Murray State obviously began to celebrate with the requisite dogpile on the field. Game over? Not so fast.

The umps got together and reviewed the call, and then overturned it. Suddenly, Murray State needed another out, and the winning run was at the plate. 

Now this was high drama. A team that thought it had clinched its spot in the CWS — as a regional fourth seed no less — now was one big swing of the bat away from having that dream squashed in the most heartbreaking fashion. 

It got TB to thinking — has there ever been a game in any sport anywhere that featured dogpiles from both teams? 

How would the drama play out? With a soft ground ball to first. Game over, again. Murray State to Omaha. 

Murray State, by the way, is located in Murray, Kentucky, about seven miles north of the border with Tennessee. According to Wikipedia, it is the 19th-largest city in Kentucky. 

Its sports teams are called "the Racers," though the baseball team has at times been known as "the Thoroughbreds," or, as it has said on its jerseys at time, "the Breds." That's fairly unique. 

Is there another school that has one nickname for almost all of its teams and then a different one for another? If Princeton did that, which team would change and what nickname would replace Tigers? 

The Men's College World Series begins Friday in Omaha. It's a fun event to watch on TV, and it looks like a blast to see in person. Perhaps someday TB will attend. In the meantime, he's all in the ’Breds. 

Speaking of the ’Breds, TB saw an interesting post on the NCAA website about the seeds of the teams that reach the MCWS. Since the current format began in 1999, Murray State is only the fourth No. 4 seed to get to Omaha, along with 17 No. 3 seeds, 34 No. 2 seeds and 153 No. 1 seeds (nearly three-quarters).

It will run for nearly two weeks, making it the final college athletic event of the academic year. 

There is still another event to be contested, though, and that would be the NCAA track and field championships, which begin today and run through Saturday in Eugene. This will be the final competition in 2024-25 for Princeton.

The track and field championships also look like they would be a fun time. Those who have been there say that's how it is, at least. It's sort of a different kind of thoroughbred, no?

Princeton will have three women and nine men in the field, by virtue of the qualifying meet in Jacksonville two weeks ago.  

Among the women will be Mena Scatchard, the von Kienbusch Award winner who will run in the 1500 semifinals while she concludes her record-setting year. Georgina Scoot will be in two events, the long jump and triple jump, and Shea Greene will throw the javelin. All three will be in the running for All-American honors. 

On the men's side, Harrison Witt will run the 1500, Sam Rodman is in the 800, Greg Foster is in the long jump, Joe Licata in the shot put and Casey Helm in the discus. 

Witt's qualifying time is the second best in his event. As for the discus? It seems to be fairly bunched, other than the top two of Ralford Mullings of Oklahoma, whose qualifier was five meters beyond anyone else — other than Cal's Mykolas Alekna, who is five meters past Mullings. 

If Alekna wins an NCAA title, he can hang his award next to his Olympic silver medal, the one he won in Paris last summer.

The 4x400 meter relay team of Karl Dietz, Xavier Donaldson, Kavon Miller and Joey Gant — none of whom is a senior — have a qualifying time of 3:02.62. No team in the field has gone below 3:02, which means that this is pretty wide open, with the Tigers in the mix.

You can read all the start times and schedules HERE.