The College World Series Which Had (Nearly) Everything

Over the 10-day span of the 2025 College World Series in Omaha, audiences were treated to nearly everything one can imagine in baseball.

And it was glorious.

Conference representation was at a premium, whereas in 2024 two conferences evenly split the eight-team field, in 2025 six conferences and an independent team without a conference made up the field, and only one conference fielded multiple teams.

The field of eight had a No. 4 seed, just the fourth such team to reach Omaha since the NCAA Tournament field expanded to 64 teams in 1999. That team ended up on the wrong end of a no-hitter, but a no-hitter was tossed for the first time since 1960 and for only the third time in the history of the College World Series.

Of course there was a rain delay and postponement, which is typical in Omaha during this time of year. We can be grateful there was only one bad weather day, some years have not been as fortunate.

Viewers were treated to multiple walk-offs, some with the season on the line and on one gut-wrenching occasion a season ended the moment the winning run touched home plate.

There were on-field player confrontations where teammates held one another accountable in the heat of the moment.

There were tips of the cap by hitters to defenders who made great plays, an ultimate sign of sportsmanship and showing appreciation for great play and hustle.

There were too many names to mention them all, but there were memorable names to be sure. Names like Zion and King, Kamau and Pluta, Thorndyke and Skirka, Mihalakis and Kmatz, Tague and Mistone, Caden Bodine and Gage Wood, and two guys named Aloy.

There was a team that played five games in the 2025 College World Series, and won all five.

The two teams in the College World Series Finals never lost a game in getting there, and therefore no games were played on either Thursday or Friday, the stage having been set late on Wednesday.

Then there was Kade Anderson. Perhaps the best pitcher in the field, or in the nation for that matter, delivered a 1-0 complete game shutout in the first game of the College World Series Finals to put his team a win away from immortality.

Asked after the game how often he had imagined that moment, how many times in his life he had imagined pitching LSU toward a championship, Anderson gave perhaps the most honest and human answer of all, "Probably every night."

On the other side of that equation, Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall was brutally honest when he stated after the 1-0 loss, "If it was going to be easy there would be more than one national champion."

In what turned out to be the final game of the 2025 season, a head coach and a first base coach from the same team were both ejected in the first inning of the game mere moments apart. These are ejections that will spill over into the season that awaits us next.

But the two teams battled. As one would expect in this 75th iteration of the event in Omaha that featured so much.

Toward the end, there was the stopper. Brought in with a runner on base protecting a 5-3 lead, tasked with recording eight outs to secure the title. Chase Shores threw 27 pitches, 22 of them for strikes. He faced eight batters and vanquished all eight of them, the final two outs coming on a 4-6-3 game-ending, title-clinching double play executed to perfection giving way to a celebration that 307 teams envisioned for themselves when the season opened in mid-February.

Asked after the victory how the dream matched up with the reality of the moment, LSU starter Anthony Eyanson said, “I remember hugging my parents right now with the natty hat and shirt on. When I dreamed about this place, and even on my visit, just looking at all the history on the wall, this is what I dreamed of, literally; throwing pitches, starting the game for the final game of the national championship.”

Tigers head coach Jay Johnson talked postgame about the "tough and together" motto for LSU baseball this season after essentially rebuilding an entire roster following the 2024 season. “I’m just so proud,” Johnson said.

“This is a team.”

The words were simple, which was fine for the moment. Coach Johnson’s face conveyed the emotions that the words might have lacked, but all were understood. That roster formed a team which now stands atop the mountain.

In the end, the team that lasted the longest, represented a school that did the same thing just two seasons ago with equally elite names that still stir the minds and emotions of fans who think back to 2023.

The 2025 College World Series brought us history and humbleness, bragging and beauty, curses and courage. There were legacies and leadership, ejections and elation, memories and misfortune.

Most of all, there was baseball. Plenty of it, and plenty of it great.

Baseball fans were treated to it all over 10 days in Omaha.

First there were 307 Division I baseball teams that all started the season with the same record and the same goal.

Sunday afternoon, only one team was still standing, reclaiming perhaps the most important description of all when discussing what this College World Series gave us in June 2025, a term reserved for the Tigers of LSU:

National Champions.

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