Kent State v. South Carolina postponed due to rain
Members of the Kent State University baseball team play invisible baseball during the rain delay at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb., Wednesday, June 20. The game was later canceled due to thunderstorms that would continue for most of the night. Photo by Philip Botta.
Kent State and South Carolina will have to wait one more day to decide a winner.
The call was made at around 9:30 p.m. ET to hold off the game until noon on Thursday. It can be viewed nationwide on ESPN 2.
With an extra day, the Kent State community got its wish granted with the return of Jason Bagoly to the team after leaving Tuesday morning for his mother’s funeral.
“That’s how things work out, Jason Bagoly sent me a text and said ‘coach, hopefully I can get back with the team tomorrow,’ so he got his wish,” head coach Scott Stricklin said. “He’ll be back with us — he’ll probably come rolling in around the eighth inning. A good story brewing here, that’s for sure but Jason is going to be back with us tomorrow and that lifted our guys’ spirits.”
Bagoly will land in Omaha around 1:20 p.m.CT and plans are being set up to get him to the stadium as soon as possible.
“We need all of our troops here to win these games and Jason’s going to be here, we hope, for the end,” Stricklin said.
A police escort is still in the cards for Bagoly to get to the stadium.
With bands of storms moving in and a tarp covering the field for more than an hour before the game was even scheduled to start, the NCAA collaborated with the players and coaches to decide. Obviously, the decision was to hold off the game in order to keep the student-athletes on a better schedule.
“They had the radar up on the big screen up there so all the guys could see everything out to the west,” Stricklin said. “We prepared them about 7:30 [CT] after I met with some NCAA officials that it’s not looking good. We hit a little bit extra, guys were ready to go but were prepared for the possibility of playing two games tomorrow.”
Rain delay delight
Everything that the Kent State baseball team has done in Omaha has been relaxed and the rain delay Wednesday was no different.
While South Carolina was busy tying up freshmen to chairs (yes, you read that right), the Flashes were finding a little bit more productive way, if you will, of passing the time.
#FlashesCWS
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Players were seen signing autographs while breaks in the rain came through, but in the locker room, the players were just acting like the college kids they are.
“Guys were loose. They were playing fake games down in there [in the dugout], guys were throwing pitches and taking fake swings,” Stricklin said. “Baseball players are a unique bunch. South Carolina looked like they tied one of their freshmen up. Baseball players are interesting creatures, that’s for sure.”
Inside the locker room, players were playing children’s games to pass the time.
“They keep themselves busy and rain delays – there’s always something funny that comes out of rain delays no matter where you are,” Stricklin joked. “This is such a nice place. You can go into the locker room and they were actually playing hangman in the locker room – the game you play when you’re five years old.”
Kent State and South Carolina will play at noon eastern with the winner playing Arkansas at 9 p.m. eastern.
Contact Matt Lofgren at [email protected].