It was over, and then it wasn’t.

Vanderbilt, already having suffered a brutally tough-luck 1-0 loss at the College World Series on Monday when Jack Leiter was virtually untouchable, was not just behind the 8-ball late Wednesday night against Stanford. The Dores were done.

Stanford led 5-4 in the 9th inning. Groundout, flyout, and then a 1-2 count on a reserve with 8 hits all season (6 singles, 2 doubles). And Javier Vaz simply could not allow another strike to cross the plate. And he didn’t. Ball 2. Ball 3. Ball 4.

Which seemed to simply prolonge the inevitable. Next up was Spencer Jones. He of 31 strikeouts in 86 at-bats on the season. Stanford ace Brendan Beck had been virtually untouchable out of the bullpen. And Jones beat Beck, not with a dramatic blast off the scoreboard, but with a slow roller to the third-base side of shortstop. Add in a throwing error and Vandy still clung to last hopes with first and third, and 2 outs.

Next up, Enrique Bradfield, perhaps the most dangerous leadoff man in college baseball. He singled to tie the score at 5. The Vandy Boys weren’t done. It wasn’t over.

And then it was. Beck’s second pitch to Carter Young sailed high, above his leaping catcher, and Spencer Jones trotted home. Then it was over. For Stanford.

Vanderbilt 6, Stanford 5.

Baseball, in the words of former MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti, breaks your heart. Ask he wrote, it is designed to break your heart. Ask the Arkansas Razorbacks. Near-immaculate all season. Had a couple of rough nights against NC State and headed home in the Super Regional round. Ask the Tennessee Vols. Off a historically strong season, they fell behind and couldn’t rally in Omaha. Not a thing wrong with finishing as 1 of the 8 best teams in the sport — even if the Vols are disappointed that they couldn’t last longer.

But the survivors at this phase of the College World Series aren’t necessarily the best teams. There are no Little Sisters of the Poor at this point. Everybody earned their way to Omaha. And Omaha isn’t about who can land the best shot on the opponent. It’s about which teams can find a way to climb back into games, who can do what Mississippi State did on Tuesday and somehow work a 4-0 8th-inning deficit in which they were being no-hit into a win.

Or who can be a strike from oblivion, but simply refuse to allow that strike to come.

And funny enough, once Vandy pulled victory from the jaws of defeat, they set the stage to do it again. Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter will be ready. Can they beat a resourceful Wolfpack team that shut Vandy down on Monday? They’ll have to do it twice, first Friday and then again Saturday to advance to the best-of-3 finals. One loss and their bid to defend their 2019 CWS crown is done, but it would be hard to pick against them.

Meanwhile, Mississippi State gets a day of rest. They’ll face whoever wins Thursday’s game between Texas and Virginia. And that team would have to take down the Bulldogs twice in a row, which frankly doesn’t feel very likely right now.

Could we get MSU vs. Vandy Boys in the finals? Honestly, who knows? The one thing we can be sure of is that between now and the end of the finals, adversity will find every team remaining. The one that claims the crown will probably be the one that gets knocked down but leaps back up again and again. Until it’s all over.