Here's what our reporter down south had to offer on Southern's NCAA win today:

CARY, N.C. — Nearly a week after arriving in North Carolina for the Division II College World Series, Southern Connecticut State’s bats finally showed up, too.
The Owls rebounded from a lopsided shutout loss in their opener to pound out 14 hits in an 8-6 win over Grand Valley State in an elimination game Tuesday at the USA Baseball National Training Complex.
The victory extended SCSU’s season and sent the nation’s top-ranked team home after just two games in the double-elimination tournament.
The Owls will try to continue their run through the loser’s bracket against either West Florida or Sonoma State today at 7 p.m.
“Whether you get beat by 13 runs or you get beat by one, it’s still a loss. And three other teams had losses,” coach Tim Shea said of his team’s 13-0 drubbing at the hands of West Florida in its tournament opener Sunday. “It’s just a matter of going back out the next day, being confident and taking care of business, which is what we did
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today. I’ve got to give credit to them. A lot of teams would have folded.”
SCSU (44-8-1) wasted little time showing that things would be different with three hits in the first two innings against previously unbeaten Grand Valley ace Kyle Schepel.
That was one fewer hit than the Owls mustered in the opener.
Even though they didn’t score in either inning and fell behind 3-0 in the bottom of the third, third baseman A.J. Rouleau was anything but discouraged about his team’s start.
“In the first game, we hit the ball well. We just hit it right at people,” Rouleau said. “I think we’re still getting used to the metal bats. We just felt like (the hits) would start falling for us.”
They finally did in the top of the fourth.
Ryan Geffert started the rally with a double into the gap in left center, followed by a walk to Rouleau and run-scoring singles by Bryan Dorsey and T.K. Kiernan. Leadoff man Kyle Cummings put the finishing touches on the four-run outburst with a two-run single — the first of his three hits and three RBIs.
“Whenever a team puts up runs, all year we’ve come right away and try to answer,” Cummings said. “It was big for us mentally and physically to get back into the game. We were good from there.”
The Owls’ confidence showed again after Grand Valley (53-5) tied the game with a run in the bottom of the fourth.
This time they took advantage of the Lakers’ inability to turn a potential inning-ending double play and scored three runs in a decisive sixth inning. Cummings was again the catalyst, starting things off with a single before Rosadino and Rouleau delivered the runs to give SCSU a 7-4 lead.
Grand Valley, which entered the tournament on a 32-game winning streak, tried to rally by scoring twice in the sixth, then putting two runners on with two out in the eighth. But closer Mike Johnston struck out Giancarlo Brugnoni looking to end the threat.
The Owls tacked on an insurance run to put the game away in their final at bat.
“That was two teams fighting to survive,” Shea said. “As I told our guys before the game, it’s going to come down to the team that wanted it the most. We were able to hang on with our pitching staff and we pieced it together against a good club.”