Even though the Cards don’t play their first game in the College World Series until tomorrow, play in Omaha began today, with Oregon State coming from behind to defeat Cal State Fullerton. Florida State and LSU will face off tonight in the Saturday nightcap.
However, the CWS can be confusing. Many look at the teams and think:
“Who plays who?”
“Who does UofL play?”
“This team lost, are they still in?”
Well I will break it down for you. The College World Series consists of two 4 team double-elimination brackets, with the winner of each bracket facing off in a best-of-three series to determine the champion. Basically, each bracket acts like how the Regionals round works, and the CWS Final acts like how the Super Regional round works.
Bracket 1:
Oregon State vs. Cal St. Fullerton
Florida State vs. LSU
Bracket 2:
Louisville vs. Texas A&M
TCU vs. Florida
I’ll use bracket 1 for example. At the time of this post, Oregon State defeated Cal St. Fullerton and LSU defeated. Oregon State will go on to face LSU, and Cal St. Fullerton will face FSU. Since the loser of the Cal St. Fullerton vs FSU game will have two losses, that team will be eliminated. It is a de facto elimination game.
The winner of the elimantion game will then face the loser of the Oregon State vs. LSU game, in yet another elimination game. Once that game has concluded, there will only be two teams left in the bracket, with one team having one loss and the other having none. Those two teams play either one or two games until one of the teams is eliminated.
If that sounds too confusing, essentially, the teams in each bracket play until 3 of the 4 teams have two losses. Once a team reaches 2 losses, they are done in Omaha and will play no more baseball.
Once there has been winner declared in both brackets, those two teams will face off in a best-of-three series in the College World Series Championship.
