A postseason war: Tennessee and Texas A&M baseball face off one last time in the MCWS final

OMAHA, Nebraska – Tennessee and Texas A&M have waited nearly eight decades to finally win a Men’s College World Series. They can wait one more night.

It’s easy now after the Volunteers beat the Aggies 4-1 in the second game of the finals on Sunday. One final game – Tennessee’s 73rd of the long season, Texas A&M’s 68th. And to the winner goes the victory. Their path has changed from the cold of opening day in February to a 90-degree day in Omaha, and now it’s time to make a decision. The Aggies almost won on Sunday, but were only seven outs away. The Vols almost lost, slumping under the weight of their left-on-base total. But then the day changed, and maybe the series too. “It was an SEC war,” Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said afterward. “Or just a postseason war.”

Did the series finally play into Tennessee’s hands after the Vols were thrilled – and maybe relieved – after Sunday’s late fight fueled by what they do best, hitting balls out of the park? Or will Texas A&M simply bring in more strong pitchers who nearly squeezed the last of the life out of Tennessee on Sunday and might be able to do it next time? All of that will have to be determined on Monday night.

This is how the MCWS 2024 enters its final day:

Vitello said he would turn on the brown noise on his sound machine Sunday night to help him sleep. As for Monday, “We’ll approach the preparation as we see fit. And then at 6:09 a.m. we’ll just play.”

Zander Sechrist, the Vols’ likely starting pitcher, said he would try to stick with his usual approach. “At the end of the day, it’s still baseball. This is just baseball with a title. I’m not trying to downplay it or elevate it, I’m just trying to take it in stride.” How would he prepare during the day on Monday for the biggest moment of his career that evening? Sechrist said he would eat lunch.

Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle mentioned that he has Justin Lamkin as the starter and heavy hitters Evan Aschenbeck and Josh Stewart out of the bullpen. Lamkin has 15 strikeouts in eight scoreless innings in Omaha, while Aschenbeck and Stewart combined for 11 Vols strikeouts in Game 1 on Saturday.

“We’re going into the last game of the season and Lamkin is ready to go. And Stewart has a day (of rest) and Aschenbeck has a day. I’ll take that,” Schlossnagle said. “We’re obviously playing against a great team. So we’ll see.”

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The Aggie who scored his team’s only run in Game 2, Jace LaViolette, wanted to focus on the mental side after a near-hit on Sunday.

“That’s where our mental work comes in,” he said. “It’s still the same game. It’s still one pitch at a time. We’re literally trying to teach ourselves to do everything one at a time. And as long as we continue to get good at-bats and keep doing what we’ve been doing all tournament and all postseason, I honestly feel like we can do anything we want to do. We can win the whole thing.”

If there is such a thing as momentum, it could belong to Tennessee after its 30th comeback win of the season. No team in the country has had more of them. And yet, the Vols don’t exactly have a problem with Texas A&M’s pitchers, and the Aggies know it.

That’s why Sunday was such a disturbing undertaking. Here’s a look at Tennessee’s survival:

Check mark . . . . . . . Check mark . . . . . .

It was getting late for the Vols. A 1-0 Texas A&M lead on LaViolette’s home run that had looked so inconsequential in the first inning was a menacing number staring them in the face in the seventh. Had the firebomb that is the Tennessee offense really finally gone down 1-0 in the championship finale?

Check mark . . . . . . . Check mark . . . . . .

Look who muted the Aggies.

Zane Badmaev had pitched just one inning in a month and hadn’t started a game since joining Tarleton in 2020. But on Sunday, he started and pitched a scoreless first inning.

Then Chris Cortez, armed with the nuclear stuff but unbearably erratic command. Cortez managed seven strikeouts in his 4.1 innings. He also managed five walks and dodged Tennessee’s scoring opportunities like raindrops.

Then Kaiden Wilson, who had pitched 8.2 innings all season and had an earned run average (ERA) of 8.31.

Against this trio, the Vols’ mighty lineup had no effect.

The pressure was mounting on both teams, figuratively and literally. Texas A&M was close to winning the championship. The Aggies would be the first team in 11 years to go undefeated in the NCAA tournament. Stadium workers were already rolling up the podiums in case they were needed for the trophy presentation.

Tennessee was only concerned with survival.

“You could feel the tension rising,” LaViolette said.

In the seventh inning, Sechrist decided to change his location in the Vols dugout.

“I sat down in front of the toilet just to change seats and get going. I didn’t actually watch the game,” he said.

Check mark . . . Check mark . . . Check mark . . .

Dylan Dreiling came to bat in the seventh inning with two outs and Christian Moore on second base. Dreiling struggled against Texas A&M’s pitchers like almost everyone else in a Tennessee uniform, striking out twice. Had he been struck out, the Vols would have been 0-for-17 with runners on base that day and 2-for-21 with men in scoring position in two games. Such numbers had the potential to haunt Tennessee baseball for posterity. “I think it was probably because there was a little more tension or a little more effort,” Vitello said of some unproductive at-bats with runners on base. “But it’s kind of hard not to have that.”

Surely Tennessee will become Tennessee sooner or later. But it had better happen sooner.

Check mark . . . . . . . Check mark . . . . . .

BOOM!

Dreiling hit a two-run homer that put the Aggies behind for the first time in this MCWS.

Cal Stark followed with a two-run shot in the eighth inning to bring the game to a more comfortable 4-1. Up to that point, he had gone 0-for-16 with nine strikeouts in the MCWS. In the sixth inning, he hit a ground ball into a double play for the first time all season, eliminating a threat. Omaha had been an offensive nightmare for the Vols catcher. But that was no longer the case. “It felt pretty good to finally get the first hit over the top,” he said. “Every kid dreams of playing in that phase and doing that so late in the game. It was pretty cool and something I’ll never forget.”

Four runs may not be an explosion by Tennessee 2024 standards, but they were loud enough, especially with four crucial shutout innings from Vols relief pitcher Aaron Combs, to keep Sechrist in his new spot next to the toilet.

“Dylan hits a two-run homer, so I do that in the next inning and Cal hits his two-run homer. I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe I won’t sit on the bench, maybe I’ll go to that spot.”

The key for the Vols was to increase Cortez’s pitch count. When he threw strikes, he was nearly unhittable. Tennessee’s best chance was to force him out and get someone else in the bullpen. Cortez eventually left in the sixth inning after throwing 99 pitches.

The home runs came from Wilson. Tennessee has hit 182 of them this season, but these were perhaps the biggest.

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“We always know we’re one inning away,” Stark said. “So we knew we just had to keep doing what we’ve done all year, trying to get good at-bats and then pass the ball to the next guy.”

Tennessee’s strength had finally shown itself, but even then it wasn’t easy. Texas A&M tied the game in the ninth inning. And Ryan Targac’s last out was a deep hit to the warning track.

“In this situation, if you had the choice, you would like to be the last to bat,” Vitello said. “Because you know the ninth inning is going to be full of drama.”

And so it is said on Monday evening: The winner takes everything and the loser is left without a title.

Vitello of the Tennessee side: “I felt like we stayed truer to ourselves before the game, in the dugout and during the game today. And, again, that’s easy to say because we did pretty well at the end. But I’d rather go into battle with this group the way they performed today and hope they do the same tomorrow.”

Texas A&M’s LaViolette: “We haven’t felt this comfortable playing baseball in a long time. I have complete confidence in this team. I think every single person on this team has complete confidence in themselves. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s another baseball game. Whether we get knocked out or not, we always put our pants on the same, we all do things the same. It’s about who gets settled in first and the fastest. It’s baseball and we can play tomorrow, like coach said, we don’t have to. It’s a blessing to wake up and be able to play this game. Obviously it’s a bummer that we lost today, but I can wake up tomorrow and play the game that I love.”

With two storied programs so determined to win their first championship, it’s probably come to that. When Targac’s deep fly was caught on Sunday and the game ended, workers began rolling the platforms up the ramp from the field. “Well,” one said, “it was a good practice run.”

They’re going to need these platforms Monday night. For someone.