Cooper, Haney lift South Carolina over UCLA

OMAHA, Neb. - Blake Cooper held UCLA to three hits in eight-plus innings and Bobby Haney drove in a career-high three runs, moving South Carolina within a win of its first national title with a 7-1 victory in Game 1 of the College World Series finals last night.

Pitching on 3 days' rest for the second straight time, Cooper struck out 10 and carried a one-hitter into the ninth before running into trouble.

South Carolina fans cheered a drawn-out "COOOOOP" as the senior righthander left after 136 pitches and the bases loaded with no outs in the ninth. Reliever John Taylor finished, but not before the Bruins broke up the shutout when Cody Regis scored on a doubleplay grounder.

The Gamecocks (53-16) and Bruins (51-16) play Game 2 of the best-of-three series tonight.

"Cooper, he maxes out his ability," South Carolina coach Ray Tanner said. "If you play a little defense behind him, he always keeps you there. I thought he was extra special tonight, just because, I don't know if the wind really helped him that much with his sinker, but he got some balls running.

"He ran a couple balls, fastballs that didn't have a lot of velocity that just ran, ran in and out of that zone."

The first hit against Cooper came with one out in the fifth, when No. 9 batter Steve Rodriguez dropped a single down the rightfield line. Cooper (13-2) retired the next 11 batters before Regis led off the ninth with a single to right. Cooper walked Marc Navarro and Jeff Gelalich singled to chase the Gamecocks' starter.

"I could tell I wasn't going to have enough giddyup on my fastball, like coach Tanner said," Cooper said. "I really wanted to rely on the sink and being able to throw curveballs and sliders and strikes, and I was able to do that early in the count, get some groundballs out and strikeouts when I needed them."

Haney hit a two-run single in the third inning and staked the Gamecocks to a 6-0 lead with a sacrifice fly in the fifth.

South Carolina collected 11 of its 14 hits and six runs, four earned, in seven innings against UCLA starter Gerrit Cole (11-4).

Cole had struck out 13 in eight innings in a win over TCU in his previous start, but he fanned only two Gamecocks.