S. Carolina, UCLA to play for crown

Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb.

UCLA has won a nation-leading 106 NCAA championships in 17 sports. Not one of them is in baseball — yet.

The Bruins’ chance is here, against South Carolina, in the best-of-three College World Series finals starting tonight.

“It’s obviously known as a basketball school with Coach [John] Wooden and everything he did at UCLA and all the national championships and all the NBA players, and then certainly football has a rich tradition as well, and softball and gymnastics and volleyball and golf,” UCLA coach John Savage said Sunday.

“Every day we go in the Hall of Fame room and we go in the weight room and you see all the national championships, and baseball doesn’t have anything underneath it.”

UCLA made it to the CWS 1969 and 1997 and went 0-2 each time.

The Bruins are in the finals a year after finishing 27-29 and not making the 64-team NCAA tournament. They’ve ridden the strong pitching of starters Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer and Rob Rasmussen, and their offense has been timely, cranking out 15 hits in Saturday’s 10-3 win over TCU.

South Carolina reached the CWS finals in 1975, 1977 and 2002, losing each time under the old tournament format that ended with a single national championship game. The best-of-three finals started in 2003.