CHAMPS: Congrats, Rebel nation. The long haul is over. Finally.

In 1982, The Ole Miss Spirit was formed and I could not have been more fortunate to cover the school I love for 40 years. Blessed beyond what I deserve.

But the one thing I have craved, begged for, even prayed for was a national title in one of the Big Three sports.

Yes, we’ve had national titles in other sports, and I am extremely proud of all of them. This is not meant to diminish those outstanding accomplishments in any way, but there was something missing from the resume’, to be honest.

No more.

The Ole Miss Rebel baseball team, in very improbable fashion, not only erased that blank on my – on all of our – sports ledger, but they did it in dominant fashion by winning the Men’s College World Series by sweeping Oklahoma 2-0 in the best of three finals series.

The Rebels were 10-1 in the postseason with the only blemish being a 3-2 loss to SEC foe Arkansas earlier in the week that they avenged the next night to get to the finals against the Sooners.

Why improbable? Well, if you don’t know by now, here’s a brief recap. 7-14 in the SEC at one point and the last team chosen for the 64-team NCAA Tournament, meaning they had to go on the road for every single postseason game.

Remarkable. Has any team ever had to overcome those kinds of obstacles and still come out on top? I doubt it.

The surface story has been well-documented, but what are the nuts and bolts of how this happened? How did this team not only win the whole shooting match, but how did they do it in dominant fashion?

The inside story has to start on the mound.

All year long, until the final month or so, the questions centered around the pitching staff. In preseason, the message was If the pitching held up, this team could be special because the offense was pretty much a given with most of the players off a potent lineup returning.

But the staff didn’t seem to materialize like every Rebel had hoped. In fact, the struggles seemed insurmountable. Who would the coaching staff turn to?

It took a while to sort it all out, but then 2 guys who were preseason afterthoughts, to be honest, surfaced as ace 1 and ace 2.

Of course that’s College World Series Most Valuable Player Dylan DeLucia and Freshman All-American Hunter Elliott. Once those pieces fell in place, the rest was just an exercise in mixing and matching who would take over as the third starter, the middle reliever, the closer, etc.

Once Coach Mike Bianco and his staff of Carl Lafferty and Mike Clement settled on those roles by guys like Josh Mallitz, Brandon Johnson, Jack Washburn, Jack Dougherty, Mason Nichols, John Gaddis and Derek Diamond, the Rebels started stringing together wins and gaining momentum.

The theme was “don’t let the Rebels get hot.” Well, they did and from that point on, the belief just snowballed and put the Rebels on an incredible, unbelievable run.

A sweep in a strong road regional in Coral Gables was followed up by a sweep of 12-seed Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg in the supers when the Golden Eagles were held scoreless in both games.

On to Omaha. . . . momentum and confidence soaring.

DeLucia kept up his hot streak limiting Auburn to 1 run in 7.2 innings and Mallitz finished the 5-1 win. The Rebs were off and running.

The Rebs then unloaded on Arkansas 13-5 behind a solid Elliott effort and a 13-hit attack led by Justin Bench with 4. The Hogs scored 2 late, meaningless runs in a game decided early.

The Rebels then had their only blemish, the aforementioned 3-2 loss to the Hogs, setting up an elimination game. It was a shame Ole Miss lost that one because Gaddis, Washburn and Dougherty pitched well enough to get a win  but a fine pitching performance by Arkansas was the decider in that one.

Ole Miss avenged the loss the next night to advance to the finals behind a masterpiece by DeLucia – a complete game 4-hitter in a 2-0 victory.

In the opener against Oklahoma, the Rebs jumped on the Sooners early with starter Dougherty , Nichols and Mallitz holding the hottest offense in the CWS to just 5 hits in the 10-3 win. In that game, the Rebels had 4 long balls, 1 by Captain Tim Elko, who hade 4 hits on the night, and back-to-back-to-back by T.J. McCants, Calvin Harris and Justin Bench to put the game away. Dougherty threw 5 perfect innings to start the contest.

In the finale, the Rebs couldn’t get much going against Sooner starter Cade Horton but trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the 8^th put up 3 runs for a 4-2 lead. Then Bianco gave the ball to Johnson, who mowed down the side to start the dogpile that is obligatory of championships.

Here are some rough numbers from the postseason. In 11 games – 99 innings – the Rebels gave up 22 earned runs for a 2.22 earned run average.

Think about that for a second. For much of the season, the unsettled staff struggled to get things going. In the postseason, they basically carried the team to the monumental finish line.

A 2.22 ERA against the best college baseball had to offer. Juggernaut offenses that seemingly scored at will to get to regionals, super regionals and Omaha. Oklahoma had scored 88 runs in getting to the finals. The Rebels held them to 5 in two games. Awesome, and I hope not lost in the shuffle.

And while the pitching staff had to be the top story of the tournament, the offense was no slouch either. Sure, once or twice they ran into outstanding pitching efforts, but they were opportunistic and scored a bunch of runs with 2 outs. If my math is correct, they scored 36 runs in 6 games in Omaha – 6 runs a game, but 19 of those were with 2 down.

That’s clutch. That’s how you win titles.

After Johnson had struck out the final Sooner batter and an incredible celebration by an incredible Rebel team and an incredible fan base that showed up in incredible numbers ensued, there was an OMG moment by yours truly.

Congratulations to Bianco – it’s been a long haul, over 2 decades and nobody deserves this more with the close-and-almost moments he has had to endure. Ditto to Lafferty and Clement – what a job they did behind the scenes this year.

To the seniors who stuck around for another year, the nucleus being three-time captain Elko, Bench and Kevin Graham. The leadership they provided, in good times and bad, was as good as it gets. They never stopped believing, they never hung their heads, they never stopped fighting and it paid huge dividends in the end – Rebel immortality and a national championship.

Congratulations to every Rebel who played their role without question, with great teamwork, with zero dissension, with outstanding spirit.

And congratulations to Rebel nation.

You deserve this as much as anyone.

The long haul is over. Finally.