AP Photo/Dave Weaver

A crowd of 17,223 turned out to watch Fresno State light up the scoreboard in Game 2 of the CWS finals.

Out Of This World

By Tim Griffin, ESPN.com

OMAHA, Neb. -- Fresno State pitcher Holden Sprague's impish way of stretching the truth has made him one of his team’s most popular players.

But coach Mike Batesole is happier how Sprague stretched the Bulldogs’ season for another night with a gritty pitching effort Tuesday night.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Holden Sprague picked up a crucial win for the Bulldogs in Game 2.

Sprague yielded eight hits and five runs in a less than stellar 3 1/3-inning effort. But considering the way his team hit in its 19-10 pounding of Georgia, just gobbling up a few innings was huge for the beleaguered Fresno State pitching staff.

"The ball was given to me, but the key was our offense," said Sprague, who notched the win as the second of three Fresno State pitchers. "I was fortunate that I was able to get them to put the ball in play and our guys made the plays when we needed them to."

Sprague is known as a free spirit among his teammates. He listed his father’s occupation as an astronaut in the Fresno State media guide before the season.

"Last season, they switched things up and he was listed as a kindergarten teacher and my mom was listed as a financial planner," Sprague said. "So he said that if he can be listed a kindergarten teacher, he could just as easily be an astronaut."

Don Sprague joked after Tuesday’s game that he was heading out for a space shuttle launch. But the Bulldogs’ improbable charge to the College World Series title game has left his family with more immediate plans than his pretend occupation.

His son’s work bought time for a worn-out Fresno State pitching staff that should now be better settled for Wednesday’s championship game (ESPN, 7 p.m. ET).

The staff was further bolstered by the efforts of Jake Hower, who earned his first save by limiting Georgia to two hits over the final three innings. It was Hower’s first work since May 17 and his first postseason action of the season.

Sprague and Hower have set up Fresno State’s pitching staff nicely for Wednesday’s deciding game. Left-handed pitcher Justin Wilson will start on three days’ rest in his first work since a 5 1/3-inning effort against North Carolina on Saturday.

"He’ll be on short rest, but he’ll have plenty of adrenaline flowing," Batesole said. "Hopefully that will be enough to get him through three or four innings."

Clayton Allison could also be ready after a quick recovery from tendinitis, which has hampered him in Omaha.

Georgia coach Dave Perno will counter with left-hander Nathan Moreau, who lasted only 2 1/3 innings in the Bulldogs’ 10-8 victory over Stanford on Saturday, the victory that pushed them into the CWS finals.

Perno also said that Dean Weaver, Alex McRee and Joshua Fields would be ready if needed in the deciding game for his team.

"Everybody else will be cheerleading," Perno said. "Those are the guys who got us here and this one will be for all the marbles."

Pluck Be A Bulldog

By Tim Griffin, ESPN.com

OMAHA, Neb. -- Even if the Fresno State players don't realize how far they've come over the last six weeks, the gravity of the Bulldogs' improbable charge through the College World Series finally hit home with their coaches.

AP Photo/Ted Kirk

Tommy Mendonca's three-run homer in the third sparked Fresno State's comeback.

"This is just amazing," veteran Fresno State assistant coach Mike Mayne said. "At the end of the game, we're sitting there looking at each other. Tomorrow will be for the College World Series championship."

This was the same Fresno State team that had lost 10 out of 15 games late in the season and entered the WAC tournament only six games above .500. The Bulldogs needed a WAC tournament win just to make the NCAA field of 64, and even then were only awarded a No. 4 seed in the Long Beach Regional -- the equivalent of being seeded 13th through 16th in the NCAA basketball tournament.

"Honestly, all we were trying to do is just make a regional," Fresno State left fielder Steve Susdorf said. "To make it this far is definitely a dream. There's something going on here -- something above all of us."

Strong Fresno State hitting had as much to do with Tuesday's victory as any divine intervention that Susdorf might be hinting at. The Bulldogs pounded 19 hits against seven Georgia pitchers, putting the game away with a 15-run, three-inning blitz that turned the game into a rout after Fresno fell into an early 5-0 hole.

"The biggest thing was there was no sense of panic," said Susdorf, who collected four RBIs to lead the hitting binge. "We just realized what we had in front of us and went out and did it."

Fresno State (46-31) took the lead with six runs in the third inning in a rally punctuated by a three-run homer by Tommy Mendonca. It was his fourth homer of the series and tied a record set eight times previously, most recently by Louisville's Logan Johnson last season.

"We were rallying and that helped make it into a huge inning," Mendonca said. "We just started rolling after that and it gave us a big boost."

After Georgia (45-24-1) tied the score in the fourth, Fresno State put the game away with five more runs in the fourth keyed by a two-run triple by Danny Muno and a two-run single by Ryan Overland.

Such situational hitting helped explain Tuesday's turnaround after Fresno State struggled with runners in scoring position earlier in the tournament. The Bulldogs had collected only four hits in their last 31 at-bats with runners in scoring position before the victory, which evened the best-of-three championship series.

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