College World Series 

College World Series

Meteorologists are predicting thunderstorms and wind for the first few days of this years College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. The storms are expected to be present for most of the weekend and that could affect the total in some early round matchups.

The Oregon State Beavers, which are a +705 long shot to win it all, didn’t hit a lot of home runs during the season, but they had fun cranking balls out during their first day of practice. The winds were clocked as high as 40 mph and that made it even easier to hit home runs in what is already known as a hitters ballpark.

"Even without the wind, the ball really flies here," Oregon State centerfielder Tyler Graham who only had one home run during the year told the Oregonian, "Even I was hitting some out."

Good chemistry

The Miami Hurricanes are made up mostly of local talent and that has gone a long way in creating good team chemistry. Twenty-five of the team’s 31 players are from Florida and 15 of those reside in Miami. A lot of the players either played together in high school or have competed against each other since little league. Miami has a good winning baseball tradition with four National Championships to its credit and that has made it easy in the recruiting process.

"Everybody that lives in Miami loves Miami and wants to play for UM," Danny Gil told the Oregonian.

Oddsmakers, however, don`t put much faith in stuff like that. The books have set the Canes as +1441 underdogs to win the championship.

Return of the Owls

The Rice Owls are making their first College World Series appearance since 2003, which was the year they captured their only championship. The Owls enter the tournament winning 37 of their past 40 games and at +316 are the bookies` second favorite behind Cal State Fullerton to win it all.

They had eight players selected in the recent MLB draft and their pitching staff may lift them over the hump. Their staff is led by Eddie Degerman who compiled a 13-1 record and his 158 strikeouts were the main reason his team struck out more batters than any other team in the nation.

Hard to beat

As a +1500 dog you may not think the Georgia Bulldogs have much of a shot, but they play their best when they have their backs against the wall.

Georgia played in five elimination games just to make it to Omaha and they came out on top each time. The Dawgs know how to swing the bat and never seem to be out of any game. If they have the lead after the first six innings, it usually means lights out for the opposition.

Set-up man Rip Warren and closer Joshua Fields are the perfect one-two punch in the bullpen and have been excellent finishing games this postseason.