The 2010 NCAA Division I baseball tournament began on Friday, June 4, 2010, as part of the 2010 NCAA Division I baseball season. The 64-team double elimination tournament concluded with the 2010 College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. This was the final year at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, the host venue since 1950.
The South Carolina Gamecocks won two elimination games against archrival Clemson in the College World Series semifinals, then defeated the UCLA Bruins in the second game of the finals on a walk-off single by Whit Merrifield to win the national championship. It was the school's first championship in baseball and second team championship overall.
Bids
Automatic bids Conference champions from 30 Division I conferences earned automatic bids to regionals. The remaining 34 spots were awarded to schools as at-large invitees.
School Conference Record (Conf) Berth Last NCAA appearance America East 29–25 (15–9) Won America East Tourney 2008 (Tempe Regional) Atlantic 10 33–27 (15–12) Won Atlantic 10 Tourney 2006 (Fullerton Regional) Florida State ACC 42–17 (18–12) Won ACC Tourney 2009 (Tallahassee Super Regional) Atlantic Sun 37–22 (16–11) Won A-Sun Tourney First NCAA Appearance Big 12 40–19 (14–12) Won Big 12 Tourney 2009 (Fort Worth Regional) Big East 40–18 (16–11) Won Big East Tourney 2008 (Houston Regional) Big South 51–7 (25–0) Won Big South Tourney 2009 (Chapel Hill Regional) Big Ten 30–28 (15–9) Won Big Ten Tourney 2009 (Baton Rouge Regional) Big West 41–15 (21–3) Regular-season champion 2009 (College World Series) VCU Colonial 34–24–1 (16–7–1) Won CAA Tourney 2007 (Myrtle Beach Regional) Conference USA 35–22 (14–10) Won Conference USA Tourney 2009 (College World Series) Horizon 33–24 (17–8) Won Horizon Tourney 2002 (Lincoln Regional) Ivy 26–17 (13–7) Won Ivy championship series 2009 (Chapel Hill Regional) MAAC 36–21 (15–9) Won MAAC Tourney 2009 (Fullerton Regional) MAC 39–23 (18–9) Won MAC Tourney 2009 (Tempe Regional) MEAC 35–20 (18–0) Won MEAC Tourney 2009 (Gainesville Regional) Missouri Valley 31–22 (15–6) Won MVC Tourney 1994 (Midwest I Regional) TCU Mountain West 46–11 (19–5) Won MWC Tourney 2009 (Austin Super Regional) Northeast 33–21 (18–14) Won NEC Tourney 2004 (Oklahoma City Regional) Ohio Valley 32–24 (15–8) Won OVC Tourney 2006 (Tuscaloosa Regional) Arizona State Pac-10 47–8 (20–7) Regular-season champion 2009 (College World Series) Patriot 25–33 (8–12) Won Patriot Tourney 2008 (Tallahassee Regional) LSU SEC 40–20 (14–16) Won SEC Tourney 2009 (NCAA Champions) The Citadel Southern 42–20 (24–6) Won Southern Tourney 2004 (Columbia, S.C. Regional) Southland 35–24 (16–17) Won Southland Tourney 2004 (Houston Regional) SWAC 22–30 (11–14) Won SWAC Tourney 1985 (Central Regional) Summit 35–25 (19–9) Won Summit Tourney 2009 (Tallahassee Super Regional) Sun Belt 36–23 (17–13) Won Sun Belt Tourney 2002 (Gainesville Regional) West Coast 36–20 (19–2) Regular-season champion 2008 (Long Beach Regional) WAC 33–26 (12–12) Won WAC Tourney 2006 (Corvallis Regional)
Bids by conference Conference TotalSchools Atlantic Coast8 Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami (FL), North Carolina, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech Atlantic Sun1 Mercer Atlantic 101 Saint Louis America East1 Stony Brook Big Ten1 Minnesota Big 125 Baylor, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M Big East3 Connecticut, Louisville, St. John's Big South1 Coastal Carolina Big West2 UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton Colonial1 VCU Conference USA2 Rice, Southern Miss Horizon1 Milwaukee Ivy1 Dartmouth Metro Atlantic1 Rider Mid-American1 Kent State Mid-Eastern1 Bethune–Cookman Missouri Valley1 Illinois State Mountain West2 New Mexico, TCU Northeast 1 Central Connecticut Ohio Valley 1 Jacksonville State Pacific-108 Arizona, Arizona State, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, Washington State Patriot1 Bucknell Southern 3 College of Charleston, The Citadel, Elon Southeastern8 Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, LSU, Mississippi, South Carolina, Vanderbilt Southland 1 Lamar Southwestern 1 Grambling State Summit 1 Oral Roberts Sun Belt3 Florida Atlantic, FIU, Louisiana–Lafayette Western Athletic1 Hawaii WCC1 San Diego
National seeds Bold indicates CWS participant.
Arizona State Texas Florida
Virginia UCLA
Regionals and super regionals Bold indicates winner. * indicates extra innings.
Tempe Super Regional
Clemson Super Regional Hosted by Clemson at Doug Kingsmore Stadium
Charlottesville Super Regional
Myrtle Beach Super Regional NOTE: Because Vrooman Field at Charles Watson Stadium was inadequate for NCAA postseason play, Coastal Carolina-hosted games were played at BB&T Coastal Field.
Austin Super Regional
Tallahassee Super Regional Hosted by Florida State at Dick Howser Stadium
Los Angeles Super Regional
Gainesville Super Regional
College World Series
Participants School Conference Record (conference) Head coach Previous CWS appearances Best CWS finish CWS recordNot including this year Arizona State Pac-10 51–8 (20–7) Tim Esmay 21 (last: 2009) 1st (1965, 1967, 1969, 1977, 1981) 61–36 Clemson ACC 43–23 (18–12) Jack Leggett 11(last: 2006) 3rd(1996, 2002) 10–22 Florida SEC 47–15 (22–8) Kevin O'Sullivan 5(last: 2005) 2nd (2005) 8–11 Florida State ACC 47–18 (18–12) Mike Martin 19(last: 2008) 2nd(1970, 1986, 1999) 25–38 Oklahoma Big 12 49–16 (15–10) Sunny Golloway 9(last: 1995) 1st (1951, 1994) 14–14 South Carolina SEC 48–15 (21–9) Ray Tanner 8(last: 2004) 2nd(1975, 1977, 2002) 17–16 TCU MWC 51–12 (19–5) Jim Schlossnagle 0(last: none) none 0–0 UCLAPac-10 48–14 (18–9) John Savage 2(last: 1997) 7th (1969, 1997) 0–4
Bracket The CWS uses two four-team brackets with double elimination format; teams play games until they accumulate two losses and no team may play a team from the other bracket. The winners of the two four-team brackets play a best-of-three series for the championship.
Championship series
Game 1
Game 2
All-Tournament Team
The following players were members of the College World Series All-Tournament Team. Position Player School P Trevor Bauer UCLA Matt Purke TCU C Bryan Holaday TCU 1B Christian Walker 2B Cody Regis UCLA 3B John Hinson Clemson SS Taylor Featherston TCU OF Beau Amaral UCLA Jackie Bradley Jr. (MOP) Evan Marzilli DH Brady Thomas
Final standings Seeds listed below indicate national seeds only Place School Record 1st South Carolina 11–1 2nd #6 UCLA 8–4 3rd Clemson 7–4 TCU 8–3 5th Florida State 6–3 Oklahoma 6–3 7th #1 Arizona State 5–2 #3 Florida 5–2 9th Alabama 5–3 Arkansas 3–3 Cal State Fullerton 5–3 #4 Coastal Carolina 4–3 Miami (FL) 3–3 #2 Texas 4–2 Vanderbilt 5–3 #5 Virginia 4–3 17th Auburn 3–2 Baylor 2–2 College of Charleston 2–2 Florida Atlantic 2–2 #8 Georgia Tech 2–2 Hawaii 2–2 #7 Louisville 2–2 Minnesota 2–2 North Carolina 2–2 Oregon 2–2 Rice 2–2 St. John's 3–2 Texas A&M 3–2 UC Irvine 2–2 Virginia Tech 2–2 Washington State 3–2 33rd Arizona 1–2 Connecticut 1–2 Dartmouth 1–2 Illinois State 1–2 Kansas State 1–2 Louisiana–Lafayette 1–2 LSU 1–2 Mercer 1–2 New Mexico 1–2 Ole Miss 1–2 Oral Roberts 1–2 Oregon State 1–2 San Diego 1–2 Southern Miss 1–2 Stony Brook 1–2 The Citadel 1–2 49th Bethune–Cookman 0–2 Bucknell 0–2 California 0–2 Central Connecticut 0–2 Elon 0–2 FIU 0–2 Grambling State 0–2 Jacksonville State 0–2 Kent State 0–2 Lamar 0–2 Milwaukee 0–2 NC State 0–2 Rider 0–2 Saint Louis 0–2 Stanford 0–2 VCU 0–2
# denotes national seed
Record by conference Conference# of BidsRecordWin %RFSRWSNSCSNC Southeastern 8 34–18 6 5 2 1 1 1Pac-10 8 20–18 4 2 2 1 1 Atlantic Coast 8 26–21 7 4 2 1 Mountain West 2 9–5 1 1 1 1 Big 12 5 16–11 4 2 1 Big West 2 7–5 2 1 Big South 1 4–3 1 1 Big East 3 6–6 2 Southern 3 3–6 1 Sun Belt 3 3–6 1 Conference USA 2 3–4 1 10–38
The columns RF, SR, WS, NS, CS, and NC respectively stand for the regional finals, super regionals, College World Series, national semifinals, championship series, and national champion.
Tournament notes
Round 1 15 of 16 No. 1 seeds won their first-round games, with Cal State Fullerton being the only No. 1 seed to lose (3–1 to No. 4 Minnesota). Eight No. 3 seeds (half the field) won their first-round games in upsets.
Round 2 13 of 16 No. 1 seeds won their first 2 games. The others were: No. 4 Minnesota, No. 2 Clemson and No. 2 College of Charleston Two No. 2 seeds were eliminated in two games: No. 2 California and No. 2 Stanford
Regional finals 13 No. 1 seeds and three No. 2 seeds advanced to the Super Regional; no No. 3 or No. 4 seeds advanced. Georgia Tech (No. 8) and Louisville (No. 7) were the only national seeds to not advance to the Super Regional.
Super regionals TCU qualified for its first ever College World Series by beating Texas. Only 3 of 8 National Seeds qualified for the College World Series.
College World Series
NCBWA (National College Baseball Writers Association) named TCU Head coach Jim Schlossnagle the 2010 National Coach of the Year.TCU's Schlossnagle honored nationally, ESPN Dallas, June 19, 2010 Collegiate Baseball and Baseball America named South Carolina Head coach Ray Tanner the 2010 National Coach of the Year., The Post and Courier, July 2, 2010Ray Tanner Named College Coach Of The Year By Baseball America UCLA head coach John Savage was named the national Coach of the Year by College Baseball Insider.Savage Named CBI Coach of the Year, CollegeBaseballInsider.com, June 28, 2010 South Carolina received the Opening Ceremonies award for highest team GPA (3.12) of the eight schools that made it to Omaha. Only one team from the 2009 CWS, Arizona State, returned for 2010. This was the 18th consecutive year that the SEC has fielded at least one team in the College World Series. South Carolina pitcher Matt Price (first team) and first baseman Christian Walker (second team) were named Freshman All-Americans by Baseball America. UCLA center fielder Beau Amaral, who led the Bruins with a .354 batting average in 64 games, was named a second-team Freshman All-America selection by Baseball America. UCLA pitchers Trevor Bauer and Gerrit Cole were named to the 2010 College All-America Team (second-team and third-team, respectively) by Baseball America.
First and second rounds TCU played in its first College World Series in school history. Florida was the first team eliminated after its 8–5 loss to in-state rival Florida State. Arizona State was eliminated after two games and became the first No. 1 overall seed team to go 0–2 in the CWS under the current 64-team format. Florida State had a season-high 5 errors in its second loss to TCU. In the first meeting between South Carolina and Oklahoma, the game was scheduled to start at 2:00 pm, but due to multiple weather delays the game did not end until after 11:00 pm.
Semi-finals None of the four semi-finalists, UCLA, TCU, South Carolina and Clemson, had won a previous CWS title. This CWS was the first since 2005 to feature an in-state rivalry in the final four with the meeting of South Carolina and Clemson. Trevor Bauer, with 13 strikeouts on June 26, led the nation with 165 strikeouts; UCLA led all schools with 700 strikeouts.
Finals UCLA played for its first-ever national championship in baseball (South Carolina had played in three previous Championship Games, 1975, 1977 and 2002). More than 300,000 fans attended the men's CWS for the fourth consecutive year, and the total attendance of 330,922 ranks second all-time. South Carolina won its first NCAA team national championship in any men's sport. UCLA's runner-up finish was the best in program history. Final game was the first championship to be decided in extra innings since 1970, and fifth all-time. Whit Merrifield's 11th-inning RBI single was the first walk-off to decide a championship since 2000. South Carolina became only the third school to win a CWS title after losing their opening game since the two-bracket format was adopted.