Matt Zemek
 | Trojans Wire
USC baseball has won 12 College World Series national championships. One of the most remarkable aspects of this massive trophy haul, which is easily the largest in NCAA baseball history, is that one-third of it came squarely against the odds. That’s right: Of USC’s 12 national titles, four — exactly one-third — came after losing Game 1 of the CWS. USC won four different national championships by losing its first time in a double-elimination tournament and then running the table the rest of the way. This USC comeback legacy began in 1958:
“USC responded to its opening-game loss by beating Arizona 4-0 in an elimination game. The Trojans pounded Northern Colorado, 12-1, the next day to remain alive in the tournament. While Missouri was torching everyone in sight — the Tigers shut down Holy Cross and Western Michigan on consecutive days — USC had managed to survive. Holy Cross, after losing to Missouri, met the Trojans in a semifinal rematch. This time, USC was ready. The Trojans’ offense solved Holy Cross pitching for a decisive 6-2 win. USC had reached the finals. That was the good news. The bad news is that Missouri just had to win once; USC had to beat the Tigers twice as a result of their opening-game loss.
“Enter Bill Thom. The USC starting pitcher blanked Missouri in the first finals game, 7-0, to force a winner-take-all championship game. Thom allowed just three hits, and it seemed his College World Series was done.
“Yet, after USC rallied from a 4-0 deficit in the title game, a back-and-forth affair stood tied at 7-7 with two outs in the eighth. Dedeaux called on Thom for what he hoped would be no more than five outs of relief. As it turned out, the game went 12 innings. Yet, Thom was up to the challenge. He threw 4 1/3 more shutout innings, meaning that in a two-day stretch, he he completely shut down Missouri’s bats in 13 1/3 innings of work. In the bottom of the 12th inning, USC’s Mike Blewitt hit a run-scoring walk-off single to give the Trojans an 8-7 victory.”
USC lost Game 1 and then won the College World Series three more times after 1958. The Trojans repeated the feat in 1963, 1970, and 1998, winning four national titles against the odds. We will see if any team manages to win the CWS after losing Game 1 this month in Omaha.