Kentucky’s first appearance in the College World Series ended in dramatic fashion Saturday in Omaha. Mitchell Daly’s walk-off home run lifted the Wildcats to a 5-4 win over North Carolina State in 10 innings. Daly’s heroics came after the Wildcats forced extra innings after Ryan Nicholson’s solo shot in the bottom of the ninth inning tied the score at 4-4.
“Just when you guys thought it couldn’t get better,” Kentucky coach Nick Mingione said. “What a game. What a game.
Both teams. Just two teams duking it out and taking advantage of opportunities. Just so thankful for our players and our fans — in that ninth inning when Ryan hit that home run I could barely hear myself even thinking.
” Nicholson said the Wildcats came to Omaha on a mission and added the CWS is just the beginning of bigger things to come for Kentucky. “It feels good to be the ground floor of what we’re trying to produce for this program,” he said. “This game is a really good starting point and a big confidence builder going forward.
We didn’t come here to be happy we’re here. We came here to win games.” Kentucky (46-14) won its sixth straight postseason game and will face the winner of the Florida-Texas A&M contest on Monday.
The rally by the Wildcats marked the third straight game game in the CWS to end with a walk-off run to end the game. North Carolina State (39-22) fell into the loser’s bracket of the double-elimination event and will play the loser of Texas A&M and Flori.
