For the first time, the NCAA baseball championship is heading to Rocky Top.
Christian Moore clubbed a leadoff homer in the bottom of the first, Zander Sechrist worked 5 1/3 effective innings and No. 1 Tennessee held off No. 3 Texas A&M 6-5 in Omaha, Neb., on Monday night to win the decisive third game of the Men’s College World Series’ championship round.
After losing the opener of the best-of-three set 9-5 on Saturday night, the Volunteers (60-13) evened the series with a 4-1 victory on Sunday and then finished the job on Monday, getting the insurance they needed with two outs in the bottom of the seventh.
Dylan Dreiling cracked a two-run, two-out homer to right, just over the glove of a leaping Caden Sorrell, to make it 5-1. Hunter Ensley singled and then scored from first when Kavares Tears ripped a double off the right-center-field wall. Ensley eluded the attempted tag by catcher Jackson Appel with a twisting dive, slapping the plate with his hand.
Dreiling became the first player to homer in all three games of the championship series and was named the MCWS Most Outstanding Player.
“I just treated it like any other game,” Dreiling told ESPN. “This is a real special group.”
Sechrist (6-1) scattered six hits, allowed a run and walked one while fanning seven. Aggies starter Justin Lamkin (3-3) lasted just 2 2/3 innings, permitting five hits and three runs to go along with two walks and two strikeouts.
Moore got Tennessee off to a fast start, lining a 1-2 pitch over the left field fence for his 34th homer of the season. Texas A&M (53-15) tied the game in the top of the third when Gavin Grahovac laced a single to left that scored Travis Chestnut.
The Volunteers took the lead for good in their half of the third with two runs. Dreiling lofted a sacrifice fly to center that scored Blake Burke, and Dean Curley made it 3-1 by smacking a single to left that scored Ensley.
The Aggies rallied in the eighth, getting a run-scoring single from Hayden Schott and an RBI double from Sorrell that pulled them within 6-3. But Tennessee summoned Kirby Connell from the bullpen, and he quashed the threat with two strikeouts.
Texas A&M got two runs in the ninth via Appel’s run-scoring single and a wild pitch that brought Appel home. However, Aaron Combs fanned Ted Burton with a breaking ball to secure his sixth save and start a wild celebration.
“I knew we’d get the tying run to the plate in the ninth,” Aggies coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “We had the same number of hits, the same number of errors. The difference was some of their hits were homers and ours weren’t.”
The result made the Volunteers just the fourth team in Southeastern Conference history to win the SEC regular-season title, the conference tournament title and a MCWS championship in the same season.
Tennessee coach Tony Vitello shared a long embrace with his father in front of the dugout shortly after the final out.
“I felt like I was the dad and he was the kid because he wouldn’t stop crying,” an emotional Vitello said.
–Field Level Media
