Getting to Omaha is never easy. The college baseball regular season is a grind, and it takes playing well for four months to put yourself in the best possible position, and then hitting your stride in May/June to book your ticket to the College World Series.
Alabama knows that all too well. The last 27 years have been spent wandering the wilderness in search of Omaha. And a drought never ends without some rain. Literally in Alabama's case.
Alabama finished off St. John's on Monday morning after the skies opened up in Tuscaloosa on Sunday night and brought a torrential downpour and lightning that forced the postponement of a moment 27 years in the making. But when you've waited as long as the Crimson Tide has waited, a few extra hours don't mean much.
This Alabama baseball team was far from perfect. There were rough patches along the way. Some even jumped off the bandwagon after a season-opening loss to Washington State. Many more lept off when they were swept by Kentucky to open SEC play and followed that up with a disheartening midweek loss to South Alabama right after it.
But this team persevered through the storm all year long. They punched back. They never accepted their place in the hierarchy. A team that was picked to finish 12th by the league's coaches in the preseason and left for dead several times throughout the season is now one of just eight teams left standing.
It's that perseverance that Rob Vaughn appreciates most.
Rob Vaughn raved about Alabama's toughness after clinching College World Series berth
“It’s the toughness, it’s the way they go about it," Vaughn told the ESPN broadcast crew in an on-field interview after the game. "This group has been hardened this year. This hasn’t been easy. We lose the first game of the year. We get swept at Kentucky opening weekend of SEC play. These kids hear it all the time, man: the mark of a man is when you stand up and respond. We talked about it a long time ago when we lost to Kentucky, and we turned around and lost to South Alabama. We talked about tribulations and trials and struggle and just developing perseverance, and it molding you into what you can be and really hardening this team for May-June. And that’s what it’s done.
"This is a tough group of kids. …I love this group, and they submitted their legacy here at the University of Alabama.”
After the season-opening loss to Washington State, Alabama bounced back to not only win the series, but it won nine of its next 10 games after that. After getting swept by Kentucky to open SEC play, the Crimson Tide responded by sweeping Florida and Auburn and then winning a road series at Oklahoma.
After getting swept by Arkansas and then losing two additional SEC series against Texas and Tennessee, it looked like even making the NCAA Tournament was up in the air. Alabama responded by winning eight of its final nine SEC games, including sweeps over Vanderbilt and South Carolina before winning two of three against Ole Miss. That positioned the Crimson Tide to not only make the postseason, but to do so as a national seed.
It provided the friendliest path to Omaha this program had seen in 20 years. And Vaughn's club took advantage, punching its ticket to the College World Series for the first time this century.
And to hear Justin Lebron talk about it, just making it there isn't enough for this group. They'll head to Omaha with the goal of bringing the national championship back with them to Tuscaloosa.
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