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At 10:32, the last baseball floated into the Omaha night.

South Carolina center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. settled under it, squeezed his left hand and flipped the ball into the bleachers, capping one of the most remarkable two-year runs in NCAA tournament history.

The highlights and heroes all run together. But one theme prevails: South Carolina looked comfortable here. Comfort leads to confidence. Confidence leads to poise. And poise wins at the College World Series.

This is where one of college sports’ proudest fan bases comes into play. On the concourses Tuesday night, the southern drawls were thick as an Omaha T-bone. Garnet and black, everywhere you looked. They screamed, they shouted, they helped push the Gamecocks over the top.

Fans like Brian Talbert, a financial adviser from Charleston.

Sunday afternoon, Talbert drove four hours to Charlotte to catch a flight to Atlanta, where he’d connect to Omaha in time to see South Carolina go back-to-back.

One problem: The flight from Charlotte to Atlanta got canceled. Bad weather. Talbert lost his cool when the lady at the counter told him she could get him to Omaha at 9 p.m. Monday.

Monday?!?

“My first thought was we’ve got less than 24 hours to drive to Omaha,” Talbert said.

Not a good option considering Omaha was about a 22-hour drive.

Talbert crashed at a cousin’s house, woke up at 3 a.m., caught a 6 a.m. flight to Detroit. He begged his way onto a flight to Des Moines — the gate was already closed when he arrived. He rented a car. Made it through the floodwaters. A few hours before first pitch Monday, he ended up in Omaha.

His reward: One of the all-time CWS knee knockers, highlighted by a bases-loaded escape in the ninth inning.

“I almost had a coronary,” he said.

Talbert looks at Omaha and sees a lot of South Carolina. Down-home. Cordial as the June day is long. A shared pride in college sports; South Carolina doesn’t have pro teams either, you know.

Believe it or not, that growing bond between South Carolina and Omaha helped this baseball team, fans say. The Gamecocks felt the good vibes.

Omaha had reason to root.

There’s Ray Tanner, who invited a 13-year-old cancer survivor from Omaha to be bat boy again Tuesday night. Charlie Peters was the “good-luck charm,” Tanner’s wife said.

There’s South Carolina’s middle infield, Peter Mooney and Scott Wingo. Stack one on the other’s shoulders and they might not scale the outfield wall. But when they are side by side on the infield dirt, ground balls don’t have a chance.

There’s Christian Walker, who broke a bone in his left wrist last Friday. Tanner added him last-minute to the lineup Monday night, without the benefit of batting practice. Walker scored the game-winning run in the 11th inning.

There’s Matt Price, who saved Tuesday’s game, after saving Monday’s game, after throwing 95 pitches to win Friday’s game.

There’s Michael Roth, the star pitcher. His father quit his job at a car dealership — he was out of vacation days — to drive to Omaha and see his son pitch in the CWS.

There’s Robert Beary, whose ninth-inning scoop at home plate Monday prevented defeat. During Tuesday’s celebration, Beary was scooping the same dirt into a bottle for a souvenir. Where is Beary’s dad this week? Afghanistan, where he stayed up into the night to watch South Carolina’s CWS games.

Hopefully he caught Tuesday’s finale.

It was classic Gamecock baseball. South Carolina gave up four runs in the first inning of the 2011 CWS. In the last 50 innings, South Carolina allowed just six.

As Gamecock fans counted the outs, they searched for the best view of the diamond. There was Eddie Whitney, who drove 27 hours to Omaha in a 41-foot motorhome.

Whitney was sleeping in an RV lot a few days ago when a policeman knocked on his door. It was 5:30 a.m. The lot was flooding. Whitney had to get to higher ground. He lived to laugh about it.

Charleston has won awards for “America’s friendliest city,” Whitney said.

“We got nothin’ on y’all here.”

There was Ashley Toole, born and raised in the Palmetto State.

She moved to Omaha last Friday to start her medical residency. Homesick, she noticed the strangest thing when she arrived: South Carolina fans, everywhere.

“I felt like I was home,” Toole said.

Talbert, the financial adviser, started shouting when the last fly ball left the Florida bat.

“This is it, baby! This is it, baby! ... How ’bout those Gamecocks!”

His flight isn’t scheduled to leave until Thursday. Which gives him one more day in the Gamecocks’ favorite vacation spot. He could go to the zoo. He could stroll the Old Market.

No, he said.

“I’ll probably sleep off the celebration.”

Contact the writer:

402-649-1461, dirk.chatelain@owh.com

twitter.com/dirkchatelain

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