Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Florida had its chance to sign Peter Mooney out of high school and then again after the shortstop had done what the Gators said and went to junior college.
As he reminisced Tuesday night about never landing in Gainesville — where his brother Mike was even the starting shortstop in 2009 for Florida — it was easy to stomach considering he was wearing a South Carolina uniform and College World Series championship hat.
“I just came here, and that was it,” Mooney said.
The Gamecocks snatched up Mooney instead and were rewarded this season for both their foresight and accepting the JC transfer onto a team that had won a CWS the previous year without him.
And before a TD Ameritrade Park-record crowd of 26,721 on Tuesday night, it was Mooney who helped put the final dagger in Florida as South Carolina closed the CWS with a 5-2 victory.
Mooney doubled to lead off the third inning and started a three-run rally that staked ace Michael Roth to a comfortable lead. The 5-foot-7, 160-pounder then yanked a sixth-inning pitch into the right-field bullpen for the Gamecocks' one and only CWS home run.
“I don't believe anybody else thought it would be me,” said Mooney, whose last of three previous homers was May 10 against Presbyterian. “But I didn't think I was going to happen to get a 3-1 fastball.”
Had that ball not left the park, South Carolina was in line to become the first team since Ohio State in 1966 to win a CWS championship without a home run.
“I just wanted one,” said Gamecocks catcher Robert Beary. “I didn't want to go the whole tournament without us hitting one. I'm happy for him. He put a great swing on that pitch. He knew it was gone, and we all knew it was gone.”
Beary said he wasn't sure what to think when Mooney first showed up from Palm Beach Community College with the task of replacing Bobby Haney. Mooney seemed so serious and said so little that Beary spent the first week just trying to make him smile. From the start, though, assistant coach Chad Holbrook could tell that the newcomer wasn't going to upset any chemistry that South Carolina had built the year before without him.
“He came in here knowing we had won a national championship the previous year, and all he did was work,” Holbrook said. “He kept his mouth shut, he didn't try to be too arrogant or cocky … even though he knew he was a good player. He wasn't going to come in and rub any of the upperclassmen wrong.”
Mooney joined forces with 2010 CWS hero Scott Wingo to give the Gamecocks a formidable middle infield. He started hitting after a bumpy start and actually led South Carolina with eight RBIs in 10 NCAA tournament games, going 11 for 33 (.333).
“We had to have a veteran guy come in and play there,” Gamecocks coach Ray Tanner said. “We didn't think a freshman would fit at the time, so we brought him in.
“It would have been hard for us to be where we are right now without the play of Peter Mooney at shortstop.”
Wingo was voted most outstanding player for the 2011 CWS on Tuesday night. Mooney landed on the all-tournament team and got to taste what all the returning Gamecocks had tasted the year before.
“I thought I was a year late,” said Mooney, who watched last year's final back home in Loxahatchee, Fla. “But we came back and got another one.”
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