Miami and former Tech coach Jim Morris have given Georgia Tech a chance to play for its ninth ACC title. After finishing pool play at 2-1 Friday with a win over Clemson, the Yellow Jackets needed Miami to beat Duke Saturday. In 12 innings, though eliminated from title contention, the Hurricanes obliged.
After Duke’s Cris Perez tied the game in the bottom of the ninth with a two-run homer to tie the game at 4 and send it to extra innings, Miami scored two in the top of the 12th and limited the Blue Devils to a single run in the bottom of the inning for the 6-5 win.
"We fell apart after that home run there in the ninth inning, but our guys kept battling and we came through there at the end," said Morris, the Miami coach who revived Tech's program before taking the Hurricanes job after the 1993 season.
In an interview posted on the Tech website, coach Danny Hall described "pandemonium" in the hallway of the team hotel after Miami recorded the last out Saturday afternoon.
Tech, which needed to win a play-in game Tuesday to make pool play, will play sixth-seeded Maryland in the 1 p.m. final (ESPN2) from NewBridge Bank Park in Greensboro, N.C. Two years ago, the Jackets became the first eighth seed to win the title (also in Greensboro) and now are the first No. 9 seed to make the title game. If Tech wins, it would tie Clemson for the most ACC titles with nine.
“We’re very excited to be in the championship game again here in Greensboro,” Hall said. “A couple years ago, it worked out great. Now we’ve had to do it a different way this year with the play-in game, then winning our bracket."
Maryland is playing for its first ACC title since 1971, which is also the last time the Terrapins played in the NCAA tournament. The conference tournament is the last ACC event that the school will participate in before moving to the Big Ten this summer. Maryland beat top-five teams Virginia and Florida State to win its pool and make it to the final.
Devin Stanton, whom Hall said has had shoulder tendinitis this week and has yet to pitch in the tournament, will get the start, although Matthew Grimes, who pitched 4 2/3 innings in the Tuesday play-in win over Wake Forest, is also available.
