By DOUG ALDEN
AP Sports Writer
OMAHA, NE (AP) — Yaron Peters extended his arms and
South Carolina's season with one big swing.
Peters hit a tiebreaking two-run homer as the
Gamecocks eliminated Nebraska from the College World Series with a
10-8 win Sunday.
"All day long I didn't get much to hit. I didn't get a
chance to get extended on anything," said Peters, who drove a
two-strike pitch from Jeremy Becker out to right-center. "My eyes just
blew up when I saw something over the middle of the plate. If I was
going to go, I was going to go hacking."
South Carolina (54-17) rallied from a 4-0 deficit for
its first CWS win in three appearances. After managing just six hits
while being shut out by Georgia Tech in the opening round, the
Gamecocks had 15 hits off six Nebraska pitchers.
"We certainly wanted to come out and have a character
performance today, and we certainly did. Being down 4-0 it didn't look
too good," South Carolina coach Ray Tanner said. "Today it was a
heavyweight fight and we were fortunate to come out on top."
John Wesley (2-0) got the win when Brandon Eymann flew
out to the warning track in right. Wesley, South Carolina's fifth
pitcher, pitched 3 2-3 innings and held the Huskers to one run on two
hits.
Nebraska (47-21) went 0-2 in the CWS for the second
straight year despite scoring 18 runs in two games. The Huskers left
nine runners on base and struggled out of the bullpen for the second
time in three days.
"We've been telling our kids since we got here that we
need to punch in runs here and there," Nebraska coach Dave Van Horn
said. "We left a lot of runners on today."
The teams combined for 26 hits and used 11 pitchers in
the game, which lasted nearly four hours and went back-and-forth until
the final inning.
Daniel Bruce, Jeff Blevins and Jed Morris each homered
for Nebraska.
After tying the game the bottom of the eighth on
Morris's round-tripper, things were looking up for the Huskers. The
prospects still looked promising in the top of the ninth when — with
two outs in the books and two strikes on Peters — the Gamecock slugger
connected.
Becker (2-2) walked Drew Meyer with one out in the
ninth and struck out Justin Harris before Peters launched the shot,
his 29th homer of the season.
When the ball cleared the fence in right-center, it
stunned the Omaha crowd and pleased Peters.
"I finally got something to hit," Peters said. "He
made a mistake and I took advantage of it."
Nebraska used seven pitchers Friday in an 11-10 loss
to Clemson. The Huskers led 7-2 at one point but couldn't hang on to
the lead. It was a similar scenario Sunday.
"We faced a couple of pretty good offensive teams and
we hung in there with them pretty good. We just didn't stop anybody,"
Van Horn said. "The bullpen is something we've battled with all year
and it showed up again today."
Harris gave South Carolina a brief lead in the eighth
when he scored on an error, then Morris tied it in the bottom of the
inning with his 23rd homer.
The Gamecocks trailed 4-0 until the fourth when they
scored five runs on six straight hits and an error. Landon Powell, who
drove in the third run with a single, scored the go-ahead run when
shortstop Joe Simokaitis bobbled a grounder from Peters with two outs.
Simokaitis atoned for the mistake in the bottom of the
fourth with an RBI double that started a three-run rally that put
Nebraska up 7-5, but South Carolina tied it in the sixth at 7-all on
Steve Thomas' bases-loaded single.
Bruce hit a two-run homer in the fourth and Blevins
followed two batters later with a solo shot that put Nebraska up 4-0.
"We overachieved as a team and blew away the
expectations of a lot of people," Blevins said. "It could have ended a
lot worse than this."