Omaha, Neb. ? A team from South Carolina is closer to playing in the College World Series championship game.

South Carolina beat Georgia Tech, 9-5, in an elimination game Tuesday, setting up a semifinal showdown with state rival Clemson.

“If you live in South Carolina you know when South Carolina and Clemson match up, even if it’s equestrian horse racing, there’s going to be a lot on the line,” Gamecocks designated hitter Trey Dyson said. “Everybody knows about the two schools. It’s just crazy.”

Steve Thomas and Justin Harris hit home runs as the Gamecocks (55-17) avenged an 11-0 loss to Georgia Tech in the opening game and earned at least one more shot at the Tigers, who beat them three out of four times this season.

The Tigers (54-15) and Gamecocks will play tonight. Clemson is unbeaten in the CWS and needs just one win to advance to Saturday’s championship, while South Carolina would need to win tonight and again on Friday.

“The governor will probably have to come out and shut everything down tomorrow afternoon,” Gamecocks coach Ray Tanner said. “It’s a tremendous statement for the state of South Carolina that we’re now guaranteed that one of our teams will play in the national championship game.”

Landon Powell and Drew Meyer each drove in two runs and Aaron Rawl pitched a complete game after struggling in a brief relief appearance against Tech in the CWS opener.

“On Friday they beat me around a little bit. You’ve just got to shake that off,” Rawl said.

Rawl (7-1), who allowed three runs on two hits in one-third of an inning in the opener, allowed 14 hits, 12 of them singles. Rawl also got Tech to ground into three double plays.

“I thought he pitched pretty well. He got us to chase some bad pitches a few times,” said Wes Rynders, who had two singles for Tech. “We let him off the hook a couple of times when we had runners on base.”

The Yellow Jackets (52-16) didn’t have an extra-base hit until Jeremy Slayden’s two-run homer in the eighth made it 9-4.

Stanford 5, Notre Dame 3

Sam Fuld and Carlos Quentin homered and Stanford held off Notre Dame and eliminated the Fighting Irish from the College World Series.

The Cardinal, CWS runners-up the last two years, improved to 40-0 this season when holding the lead after eight innings.

Stanford (47-17) will play Thursday against Texas in a rematch of the Longhorns’ 8-7 win Monday that put the Cardinal in the elimination round. Texas needs just one win to reach Saturday’s championship game of the double-elimination tournament.

Steve Stanley was 2-for-3 with an RBI and a stolen base and scored a run for Notre Dame.

The Fighting Irish (50-18) had 22 come-from-behind wins this season, but could not come up with one more after Stanford added an insurance run on Andy Topham’s squeeze bunt in the ninth.

Dan Rich gained his sixth save when he struck out Joe Thaman to end the game. Rich relieved John Hudgins (10-1) who allowed two earned runs and six hits over 52/3 innings.