While you were sleeping, Texas Christian University and Sam Houston State were locked in an epic struggle in the winners' bracket at the NCAA's Fort Worth regional. When the infield dirt finally settled — and believe us, there was plenty of dirt flying — TCU emerged victorious 3-2 in 22 innings.
The game is officially the second longest in NCAA Division I championship baseball history, which essentially means the postseason. The Texas Longhorns defeated the Boston College Eagles 3-2 in 25 innings back on May 30, 2009 in the longest Division I college game played in regular or postseason.
As we said, there was plenty of dirt flying in Saturday night's (into Sunday morning's) game. There was also plenty of controversy. In the bottom of the 21st inning, Sam Houston St. had runners at the corners with at one out when Travis Lee hit a slow chopper to shortstop. TCU literally had no chance to get the runner at home or turn a double play, but they played it out anyway and ended up benefiting on an interference call.
It was deemed that runner Luke Plucheck didn't begin his slide until arriving at the base, which is a rules violation and obviously dangerous. You probably shouldn't fault the hustle, either, but in this case it was unnecessary. The winning run could have jogged home backwards. Yet, despite the fact his slide had little influence on the outcome, he was ruled out and also ejected for the aggressive play.
I can't GIF it, but here's a still of the slide at 2nd base called interference pic.twitter.com/ebtA8f5qRV
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) June 1, 2014
It's a play you hate to see decide such an important game, especially one that lasted six hours and 54 minutes and featured 594 pitches. By the same token, TCU deserves some credit for going through with the play despite it looking hopeless, but you still can't but feel bad for Sam Houston St.
Those are the breaks sometimes, and the breaks get even tougher on Sunday. With the the loss, Sam Houston St. has to turn right around and play an elimination game against Siena at 3:30 p.m. ET, just a little over 13 hours after this game ended. Their reward if they win that game? Another game against TCU on Sunday night again with their season on the line.
Sam Houston St. went six pitchers deep on Saturday in a losing effort. They'll be forced to dig deep on Sunday just to survive one game. TCU used seven pitchers in the win and sits in a fairly good position, but the real winners could be Siena if they're able to take care of business in the afternoon.
It certainly adds more intrigue to an already wild postseason. The top two national seeds — Florida State and Florida — were both eliminated from the competition on Saturday. It's a wide open field now*

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813