Nice article written by Mike Hume over at ESPN. Since it's an In$ider article, I thought I'd clip out some of the relevant Austin Wood parts for BONers.

By early afternoon of the second day of Major League Baseball's amateur draft, both Boston College's Mike Belfiore and Texas' Austin Wood, the relievers who combined for 298 pitches in the epic, 25-inning standoff in the NCAA regionals May 30, had been snatched up by the Arizona Diamondbacks and Detroit Tigers, respectively. It was a joyful turn, though one that was not assured.

Once again, a hearty congratulations to Austin Wood for getting a shot at a pro career.

"A few weeks ago I heard anywhere from [Round] 7 to 15," Wood said Wednesday after being chosen. "But as of the past two weeks I started hearing the fifth round possibly."

According to one NL scout, Wood was chosen "higher than many people I know had him, so the argument could be made his outing helped him. Wood's performance just reinforced the fact of what a great competitor he is," the scout said, before pointing out that the high pitch count was the point of some debate.

It's an interesting theory, and I don't doubt that Wood got some name recognition from his performance. In fact, if you asked the average sports fan to name two (any two) college baseball players right now, I'm guessing his/her answer would be "Stephen Strasburg and that dude that threw 12 something innings of no-hit ball in some game a couple weeks ago."

In any case, this also helped out Wood's foil, Mike Belfiore from Boston College, who also went higher than expected at 45th overall.

The future is still the future, but as of Wednesday, both Wood and Belfiore were beaming about realizing their childhood dream.

"Probably been the best month of my life," said Wood, whose Longhorns start College World Series play June 16 in Omaha. "I haven't stopped smiling for the past two or three weeks."

You've gotta imagine that no matter how well Wood's pro career goes, he'll never have a greater baseball moment than those 12.1 no hit innings that will be forever remembered in Longhorn history. Well done, and hook 'em.