OMAHA, Neb. -- For the ninth consecutive year, there will be no national championship for the top-seeded team at the College World Series.
The pitching tandem of Danny Sandbrink and Erik Davis, and a Stanford offense that produced timely hits were too much Wednesday night for a Miami club that played nowhere near its midseason form late in the year.
The Cardinal dispatched the Hurricanes with an 8-3 victory and now get a day off. Next, they'll try to beat Georgia twice to win Bracket 1 and reach the best-of-3 championship round for the first time since 2003.
Sean Ratliff's home run and Cord Phelps' triple in a four-run fifth inning were the key blows for the Cardinal (41-23-2). But it was the steady efforts of Sandbrink, a freshman making his sixth start, and Davis, a down-on-his-luck senior, that kept Miami from scoring more than one run in any inning.
"We knew they were going to score some runs," Davis said, "but if we could keep them out of the big inning, we were able to keep momentum on our side."
The Hurricanes (53-11) failed to join the 1999 squad as the only No. 1 national seeds to win the College World Series.
Miami, ranked No. 1 for most of the second half of the season, has been eliminated in three games in each of its four CWS appearances since 2003.
The Hurricanes blew a lead in the ninth inning and lost 7-4 to Georgia in their Omaha opener. They bounced back to beat Florida State 7-5, but closer Carlos Gutierrez was shaky for the second successive game and the Seminoles scored three runs in the ninth to make things interesting.
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| After posting their best record since 2001, the Hurricanes fall way short of expectations in Omaha. (AP) |
"In the middle of the season, I felt like we could beat anybody at any time because we had all the cylinders clicking," he said. "We didn't get it going out here. No question."
Phelps had three of Stanford's 11 hits and drove in two runs. He had a single and double to go with his triple and missed out on hitting for the cycle when he flied out to short right in the seventh inning. No one has hit for the cycle at the CWS since Minnesota's Jerry Kindall in 1956.
"Obviously, I knew in the back of my mind I was a home run away from a cycle," said Phelps, who has 13 home runs. "When you think about something like that, it never happens."
After Miami's first two batters reached on singles, Sandbrink and Davis combined to hold the Hurricanes without a hit until the sixth inning. Sandbrink allowed two hits and one run in four innings.
