Florida joins elite company by winning its first College World Series

The University of Florida swept past LSU on Tuesday night to win its first College World Series. The Gators won the game 6-1, closing out the best-of-three series in consecutive games. It was a 2-1 game going into the bottom of the eighth, but then the Gators exploded for four runs to put things out of reach.

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This was pretty special for Florida simply because of how long it took the program to reach the ultimate prize. This was the 103rd season of the baseball program and its first national championship. It had come close, making the finals in 2005 and 2011, but finished second both times.

When it was time to celebrate, it was sweet:

Here’s a factoid that makes the championship even sweeter: Florida is now one of only six schools to win a national championship in the three majors men’s sports — baseball, basketball and football. The Gators won football championships in 1996, 2006 and 2008 (shout out Tim Tebow) and won the NCAA Tournament in 2006 and 2007 (shout out Joakim Noah).

The others schools to accomplish that feat are a who’s who of college athletics:

• Cal
• Stanford
• Ohio State
• UCLA
• Michigan

Some Oklahoma State fans might quibble that their school should be included on the list too — and kinda sorta, but not entirely. Oklahoma State won the baseball championship in 1959 and basketball in 1945 and 1946. Football is where things get tricky. Oklahoma State was retroactively awarded the 1945 National Championship by the American Football Coaches Association, but that didn’t happen until 2016. So, uhh, that’s a heckuva rain check.

Nonetheless, Florida is now legitimately on the list after winning the College World Series at long last.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz