All I had hoped for was a chance and a chance we shall receive. Matt Purke worked a very steady 6 1/3 innings and Tyler Lockwood came on and shut the door when things got dicey. Bottom line, the Frogs are 1 win away from the National Championship series.

I talked yesterday about how the wind would be a factor. UCLA made a few mistakes with pop flies, TCU capitalized with 3 homers, and Matt Purke took the wind out of play preferring to keep the ball on the ground.

Purke may not have had his best stuff this afternoon, but he was very effective with his 107 pitches. Most impressive was of his 19 outs, 14 came on groundballs. Even the 3 hits he allowed came on a bunt, a grounder up the middle and a grounder to 1st base.

More impressive might have been Tyler Lockwood who continues to be the steadying force out of the bullpen. A little less than 48 hours after throwing 73 pitches against Florida State, he came in and threw 49 masterful pitches tonight. Despite getting squeeze on his 1 walk and getting a bad break on a call at 3rd base, he persevered and kept the Bruins in check.

I am sure there are more superlatives to this game, but the summary is the Frogs controlled this game the whole way and they deserved this. So now it is winner take all in bracket 1 of the College World Series to be decided on Saturday.

We know UCLA will be starting Trevor Bauer who was masterful against Florida last Saturday night. He went 7 innings, throwing 128 pitches, and he allowed 3 earned runs while tallying 11 strikeouts. For those of you who are saying, well at least we do not have to face Gerrit Cole again, well Bauer has thrown more innings, has a better ERA, less walks and more strikeouts than Cole. So he is really good. And never fear, if he gets in any trouble, expect Cole to be in the game very quickly.

The Frogs have a toss up. I personally go back to Kyle Winkler. Winkler is one of those guys who does not always get it right on the first try, but rarely is he beaten in the same situation twice. Winkler clearly did not bring his A game last Wednesday against UCLA, but a lot of that had to do with him leaving the ball up. He fell behind in counts and did not keep the ball down. That is a recipe for disaster. But if we get the Winkler who pounds the strikezone and churns out groundballs, he could fare really well.

The other school of thought is going with Paul Gerrish. If you believe that Coach Schlossnagle is a guy that rides the hot hand and rewards strong performances, then expect Gerrish to start. He came on in a tough situation and held UCLA in check for 3 2/3 innings picking up 5 strikouts and allowing 0 earned runs. Gerrish is not afraid of pressure situations as he did pick up the only win in the 2009 Super Regional at Texas with 7 masterful innings against the Longhorns. What I will say is if we go the Gerrish route, he typically expires at around 60-70 pitches. When the 5th inning rolls around, his pitches rise and batters tend to hit him. I am not against starting him, but at least have someone prepared when the moment arrives.

And I would expect the bullpen to be going all game. In these winner-take-all situations, anyone and everyone is available. Kaleb Merck could pitch 3 innings. Kyle Winkler and Steven Maxwell could pitch in relief. Everyone needs to be ready.

The other thing is we still have to be prepared for the prospect of a championship series. I have no idea what our rotation may look like, but the positive thing is Clemson and South Carolina will play again tomorrow as well, so they are in the same disarray as well. But none of that matters if we cannot win tomorrow.

My friend Joe made a good point about this game tomorrow. This will be the 2nd day game in a row and the weather calls for heat and humidity with the heat index around 105. I like TCU in back-to-back day games in that kind of weather as opposed to UCLA where their home weather will have a high of 77 this week.

So here we are 1 game away. Remember when Texas made the field goal in the Big XII Championship when a miss could have sent the Frogs to the Rose Bowl and the National Championship game? This time we control our own destiny. All we need is 1 more win!