Braden River’s Tyler Dyson gets final outs for Florida to take control at CWS

Tyler Dyson seems to have fought his way back to a critical role in the Florida bullpen and on Tuesday in Omaha, Neb., he helped the Gators move within one win of a spot in the College World Series final.

Less than a week after throwing seven shutout innings of relief during one day to beat Wake Forest in an NCAA tournament super regional, Dyson was back on the mound to finish off a 5-1 win against Louisville in the CWS. The freshman from Braden River High School tossed 1 1/3 innings and striking out two batters on only 24 pitches in Nebraska.

The win lifted UF to 2-0 in pool play, meaning Florida will only need to win once before losing twice against either the Cardinals or Texas Christian. Louisville and TCU will meet in an elimination game Thursday with the winner moving on to face the Gators on Friday. If the Gators lose that game, Florida would face a winner-takes-all game against the Cardinals or Horned Frogs on Saturday.

Game 1 of the best-of-three CWS final will begin Monday regardless of how long pool play lasts. However long Florida lasts at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, it seems the Bradenton pitcher will have a role to play a year after he was the Herald’s All-Area Player of the Year.

“The emergence of Tyler Dyson has been awesome,” head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said during the postgame press conference. “We get contributions from a lot of different people. A lot of these decisions are gut decisions.

“It was really good to get Tyler Dyson back out there. And I think you guys have seen the growth in him over the last three or four weeks and it’s just another big bullpen arm for us moving forward.”

This story was originally published June 21, 2017 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Braden River’s Tyler Dyson gets final outs for Florida to take control at CWS."