GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Through all of Kyle Van Hook's years around baseball, there's one mantra he's seen proven true time and time again.

"Sometimes the baseball gods give, and sometimes they take away."

So when his 1992 Blinn baseball team made an improbable run through the Texas state baseball tournament to qualify for the team's first NJCAA World Series in 24 years, there was only one thing going through the Buccaneers' coaches mind.

Blinn was in the graces of the baseball gods.

For a team that garnered little attention during the regular season, the Bucs—mixed with great team chemistry and under a head coach who would go on to become a professional baseball scout for the Cleveland Indians—finished third at the World Series.

"It was such a magical year," Van Hook recalled. "We were just happy to be in the state tournament. Obviously our goal was to make it to the World Series, but we didn't expect it to happen so soon."

It was nearly the magical season that never was.

In order to qualify for the state tournament—only two teams from each of the state's four conferences qualified—Blinn was in a battle with San Jacinto for the conference's final seed going into the final series of the season. And San Jacinto seemingly had the upper hand to clinch that final berth.

The Bucs had a three-game series with Alvin, while San Jacinto headed into a series with last-place Brownsville—a series Van Hook was all but certain the Gators would sweep, meaning the Bucs would need a sweep of their own.

Blinn dropped its series opener.

"I thought our chances were pretty slim at that point," Van Hook said.

But the baseball gods threw a curveball at San Jacinto as it dropped a game to Brownsville, and following the Bucs series win over the Dolphins, Blinn clinched the berth to the state tournament.

Once there, the Bucs got revenge on McLennan, a team that beat them all six times during the regular season, via run-rule. Though Blinn suffered a second-round loss to nationally-ranked Texarkana, the team received another blessing from the baseball gods: a multiple-day rainstorm that moved the tournament from Waco to Stephenville to Abilene. While there was a lot of traveling involved, the Bucs were getting much-needed rest for their pitching staff.

And how that rest paid off.

When the tournament resumed, Blinn soon avenged its loss to Texarkana, then beat Laredo, the nation's top-ranked team and heavy favorite to win the tournament, in back-to-back games to qualify for its first World Series appearance since 1968.

Van Hook was no stranger to World Series appearances. In his time as an assistant at San Jacinto, the Gators qualified for the national tournament in 1989 and '90. The issue was, because of the rain-delayed tournament, Blinn had only three days to arrive in Grand Junction.

"The original plan was to bus up there, which would have been a struggle for our guys with all the traveling we had done," Van Hook said.

Instead, because Laredo booked airline tickets to Grand Junction weeks in advance, the Bucs claimed those tickets and had a flight booked to Colorado.

 "Grand Junction is such a wonderful place," Van Hook said. "The town shuts down for a week and the stands are packed. It's an incredible experience."

Once in Grand Junction, Blinn shut out Indian Hills (Ia.) 7-0 in its tournament opener, then lost to Pima (Ariz.) 7-5 in the second round before responding with another 7-0 win over Indian Hills. Essex (Md.), the eventual national champion, defeated Blinn 13-3.

Following the season, 13 players on the team's 25-man roster were drafted or played professional baseball.

"We weren't the most talented team in the tournament, but I've always felt that if you can get to the tournament, anything can happen," Van Hook said. "We got hot and we made a run."