South Carolina, the last to win a college baseball national championship at old Rosenblatt Stadium will attempt to be the first to win a championship at sparkling new TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb. Carolina begins defense of its 2010 title Sunday when they play the Aggies of Texas A&M in the first round of Bracket-2.
The Gamecocks are listed as -160 CWS Odds favorites versus the Aggies for Sunday's game with a posted eight-run total. Aggies backers will be getting +130 odds as underdogs.
Virginia and Cal, also members of Bracket-2, played this afternoon.Junior right-hander Ross Stripling (14-2, 2.29 ERA) gets the call to start for the Aggies while Carolina counters with junior left-hander Michael Roth (13-3, 2.29).The winner of this Gamecocks/Aggies game will play either Cal or Virginia on Tuesday.
The Gamecocks are listed as favorites and probably should be. Not only does the team overshadow the Aggies in experience, they come out ahead in numbers comparison too. The Gamecocks hit slightly better with a .296 batting average compared to .293 for A&M. Both schools are equal in hits per game at 9.9, but the Gamecocks have been better at scoring averaging 6.2 runs per game to 5.9 for the Aggies. South Carolina has better pitching with a team ERA of 2.60 compared to 2.88 for A&M.
Prior to the start of the series, oddsmakers listed South Carolina's CWS Odds at +500 with Aggies backers +650.
