NCAA Baseball Tournament: South Carolina Advances to Super Regionals, Alabama Eliminated

Sorry this is late, but so were the games, so we'll keep it simple.

South Carolina continued its drive to repeat as baseball national champions Monday by completing a sweep of the Columbia Regional. The Gamecocks, who entered the day with a 4-1 in a rain-suspended game, ended up with an 8-2 win. They will face the UConn Huskies in the Columbia Super Regional.

Alabama, though, faced a hole to climb out of that proved to be too large. The Tide fell 11-1 to Florida State, ending Alabama's season and leaving the SEC with four teams in the 16-team Super Regional round.

That is a solid showing, but the number of teams is only going to go down from here. Florida and Mississippi State will face each other in the Gainesville Super Regional, and neither Vanderbilt's draw of Oregon State or South Carolina's opponent in the Huskies represent easy opponents. And that's before the College World Series gets started.

But altogether, the league had a fine first weekend of the NCAA tournament. And the drive to keep the championship in the SEC is still very much in gear.