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Henceforth, it shall be known as the Austin (Wood) Regional.

Wood, Texas’ senior lefthander, turned in the greatest performance in a game jam-packed with superlatives, striking out 14 over 13 innings of scoreless relief in Texas’ 3-2 win over Boston College. Maybe it was the best postseason college baseball game ever, maybe it wasn’t—but it was officially the longest game in NCAA history, lasting 25 innings. The game began at 7:02 p.m. EDT Saturday and concluded 7 hours, 3 minutes later at 2:05 a.m. Sunday.

"I’ve never been a part of anything like this,” Boston College coach Mik Aoki said in the post-game news conference afterward. "In fact, nobody in college baseball has been part of anything like this."

Texas got on the board first with two runs in the second inning, and Boston College tied it with single runs in the fourth and sixth. Neither team would score again until the top of the 25th, when Connor Rowe walked to lead off the frame, advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on Travis Tucker’s RBI single through a drawn-in infield.

Amazingly, Texas used just three pitchers in the game (compared to BC’s eight), as Chance Ruffin started and went 6 1/3, and Austin Dicharry followed Wood with 5 2/3 scoreless innings of work, allowing just one hit. The Longhorns out-hit the Eagles 20-8 but left 24 runners on base, tying an NCAA record. But Wood kept Boston College from generating any offense, holding the Eagles hitless through his first 12 1/3 innings of work before Tony Sanchez singled in the 19th. The sidearming Wood threw 169 pitches, including 120 for strikes.

"That is the best pitching performance by an individual pitcher in the 41 years that I’ve coached,” said Texas coach Augie Garrido.

"In the dugout, (pitching coach) Skip (Johnson) and I were talking about him and whether he should come out or stay in. He walked by both of us and said, ‘I’m not coming out of this game.’ "

Wood’s performance overshadowed a brilliant outing by BC’s own closer, junior lefty Mike Belfiore. The two-way star allowed just three hits while striking out 11 over 9 2/3 scoreless innings before leaving in the 19th.

"This is the most exciting game I have ever played in,” Belfiore said. "And while it was too bad we lost, it was the experience of a lifetime."

Now that its finally over, I am so glad I actually witnessed this spectacle from first to last pitch…all 7 hours of it.

Posted by Steve | May 31, 2009 at 2:58 am | Shortcut

So, if you are a betting man.. what odds do you give Army to capitalize on the depleted BC and Texas squads considering they gave a full-strength Texas team a scare and beat Texas State

Posted by NMS | May 31, 2009 at 3:27 am | Shortcut

169 pitches? Ye gods, Boyd is going to have to come up with a new pitcher abuse points scale for this one. An unbelievably gutty performance, but I hope his arm doesn’t fall off.

Posted by Mark | May 31, 2009 at 3:49 am | Shortcut

NMS:
Texas is far from depleted. They still have their second best pitcher (Jungmann) fresh and ready to start today’s game. Also, their sixth best pitcher (Workman) hasn’t been used yet in the regional either. Strikeout artist Kendal Carrillo and the steady Stayton Thomas are also completely ready to go. I haven’t even mentioned Shinaberry or McIrahan. That’s six quality pitchers who haven’t even thrown a single pitch this weekend. Hook ‘em Horns!

Posted by Jim Fletcher | May 31, 2009 at 9:52 am | Shortcut

Interesting game length and pitching circumstances – nice to see pitchers actually pitching – can anyone top this, while at Catching @ Jacksonville [ Fla.] Univ. – [ now playing Miami in elimination bracket Sunday, at Gainesville Regional ]

I caught a 19 inning game which JU won, 4-3, [Oglethorpe Univ. - April 15, 1967 ] where I tied game in 9th w/ 2 outs, man on 2nd – [ smiles ], lost 10 lbs. body weight, ugh;
then played in 2 tie games that NoBody won, in 1968 – April 5-[12 innings], April 6, 18 innings, against Fla. Southern
played 14 inning game on April 26, 1966, won 9-6, against Miami regular season, not only did I lose weight in the Fla. sun, butt also lost mega poiints on my bat avg. – OUCH!

Posted by joe schlegel, adrian, ga. | May 31, 2009 at 12:19 pm | Shortcut

Yeah, Texas should actually still be okay pitching-wise, with Jungmann going tonight and Workman tomorrow if needed and several guys available out of the pen. But there just can’t be enough good things said about Austin Wood’s performance. I watched the entire agonizing 7 hours and was in awe of his performance. He had great command throughout but by the end he was willing the ball over the plate, cramping and looking exhausted. He’s the ultimate gamer. I wasn’t happy with him being left in so long (169 pitches!) but his performance is one for the ages. Reminded me of some of Brooks Kieschnick’s marathon pitching efforts back in the early 90s.
Hook ‘em!

Posted by Gusball | May 31, 2009 at 2:07 pm | Shortcut

Well, if this is the best game ever the worst game ever might be going on right now in Tallhassee…that game with Ohio State is getting ugly!!!

Posted by George | May 31, 2009 at 5:24 pm | Shortcut

I didn’t mean Texas was depleted in terms of arms since they managed to get a few guys to cover vast stretches of innings vs BC. I meant Texas being generally worn out, position players and all, after that marathon and it looks like that might have been the case to some extent tonight.
That and Army being a pretty solid ballclub.
Army had ‘em beat the whole game until they imploded in the end.
Too bad

Posted by NMS | May 31, 2009 at 10:15 pm | Shortcut

BTW, there are many other records that surely fell in this game… among them the most ABs in a single game. I believe the old record was 70. This weekend, BC broke the record with 80, but will not ever have the record since Texas had 91.

Some other potential records?
Preston Clark – 33 put outs?
Texas – 24 LOB?
Austin Wood – name your stat?

Posted by texd | June 1, 2009 at 11:21 am | Shortcut

Texas did have the look of an exhausted team, and BC looked more so in Game 5. Going into game 6 Texas had played 7 more innings than Army, who had played one more game coming out of the loser’s bracket. There came a point in the UT-BC game where you realized, whoever doesn’t win this is toast. 2-0 gets you in the catbird seat, as long as one of the wins didn’t take you 7 hours get it done. Say what you will about leaving Austin Wood in for 13 innings, but aside from his pitch count he never gave them any reason to take him out. Army is a solid team, but lacks the depth of some of the other schools. I love their style of play – it honors the game.

Posted by Charles | June 1, 2009 at 1:03 pm | Shortcut

This was one of the most dominant and foolish performances in sport’s history.

check out the blue duck’s take at:

http://blueducksports.wordpres.....s-history/

Posted by The Blue Duck | June 1, 2009 at 9:35 pm | Shortcut