Adrian Alaniz limited the Gators to two hits and no runs over the first seven innings before running into trouble in the eighth. AP

OMAHA, Neb. -- The Texas Longhorns are a part of college baseball royalty, as much a part of the College World Series at Rosenblatt Stadium as boozed up co-eds and impeccable steak sandwiches.

Exuberant Texas fans strolling the stadium before the game wore T-shirts emblazoned with the words "University of Texas at Omaha." The Longhorns expect to be playing for a championship. Of the teams that qualified for the College World Series, only Texas didn't break out into mad celebration with a dogpile.

A Texas roar resonated across Rosenblatt Stadium on Saturday night as J. Brent Cox, the Longhorns' ace closer, unleashed his final pitch of the night and struck out his sixth batter to seal his team's 4-2 win. The Longhorns are one win from their sixth national championship, their second in four years.

No player shined more than Adrian Alaniz, Texas' freshman pitcher from tiny Sinton, Texas. On Saturday night, the Legend of the Sinton Kid grew. Sinton, Texas, is smaller than a speck of dust on the map, a town of 6,000 in the middle of nowhere.

"There isn't even a McDonald's there," says Alaniz.

Using a barrage of first-pitch breaking ball strikes while painting the corners of the plate with the precision of a pointillist, Alaniz shined in Game 1 of the College World Series and put the Longhorns in position to win a national championship.

Not long ago Alaniz was Texas' top high school pitcher, the pride of Sinton as he rolled up a 48-1 career record for Sinton High School and led the tiny school (600 students) to a state championship in 2002. He was also an all-state quarterback who led the Pirates to the state final in 2001. Nebraska recruited Alaniz to run its option offense. But he had other thoughts.

"Baseball was always my first sport," he says, "and playing for Texas was a dream."

Now Alaniz is fast becoming Texas' next Longhorn legend, following in the footsteps of names like Roger Clemens and Huston Street. Alaniz knows that whatever he goes on to accomplish he will forever be remembered in Texas for what he did as a Longhorn.

"The tradition is amazing," he says. "The names associated with Texas baseball are great and it makes you proud to wear the uniform."

In the biggest start of his life, Alaniz was nearly untouchable in seven brilliant innings of work. The only two runs that were attributed to him came when Cox allowed a two-run single to Florida slugger and first baseman Matt LaPorta in the eighth inning. "He was throwing balls in the strike zone, he did a great job staying ahead of us and keeping us off-balance," says LaPorta, who this season led the nation in homers (26) but on Saturday was a quiet 1-for-3 against Alaniz.

Said a beaming Alaniz after the game, "It's just a thrill to be able to do this in such a big setting."

Thanks to their young rising star, the Longhorns can taste another championship.