OMAHA, Neb. – The Tennessee baseball coach was getting ready for bed Thursday night when he checked his cell phone one last time. Do you know how past photos sometimes appear on screen to revive memories? Years ago there was a photo of Tony Vitello and his father standing on a diamond in Knoxville.
Suddenly the long road from there to this weekend became very real. “It’s fun to progress,” Vitello said. “As they say, the journey is kind of what it’s all about. »
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The Texas A&M baseball coach was talking about recruiting and the key pieces he brought in for this particular season, but also those who performed well.
“We had to convince these guys,” Jim Schlossnagle said. “We lost to other guys. A guy went to another school saying, “Hey, if I was in high school I’d come to A&M but I want to have a chance to win next year so I’m going to go somewhere else in our conference.” And it was disappointing because we played in a regional final last year. We played in the championship game of the SEC tournament. It wasn’t like they were coming to a JV program. But yeah, you’re trying to break that stigma and join the club of teams that are on TV at the very end.
Well, it’s the very, very end, and his Aggies will be on TV, the last team standing in the way of the No. 1 team in the country.
What if it was Tennessee in the Men’s College World Series? The tradition, all those orange jerseys in the stands at every game, the aura of Pat Summit to the rhythm of every sport, whatever the program? Memories of a few difficult days not so long ago.
And still no national baseball championship.
“I wish people would have kept track of our first year,” Vitello said, meaning 2018, when he did everything he could to connect with fans, including operating his own booth of lemonade during a match where he was suspended. “We suffered a lot of abuse on our land and in other areas as well. We were bullied, that’s the simplest way to put it. And no one wanted that feeling again, not just in the SEC but outside of conferences as well.
“We wanted to play with some attitude and a chip on our shoulder, because look who we’re playing.”
What if it was Texas A&M? The 12th Man, fervor, unity.
And still, no national baseball championship.
“Doing it for this university, with what I’ve been able to experience this year, would change my life.” designated hitter Hayden Schott said. “Just thinking about it makes me cry. »
Both teams should therefore enter the best-of-three championship series with strong motivation and a deep desire to reward the fans who followed them so ardently.
“The 12th man is so special. If I start talking about them too much, I’ll start crying because they are truly a unique and special group of people who are very supportive of me. And it would be great to reward that,” Schlossnagle said.
“It’s pretty amazing how positive and loyal people are to be a part of the SEC, because most people are only loyal as the wins come and go,” Vitello said.
Both teams should be fully confident. The Aggies have never trailed in these College World Series. They have been tied for only six innings. Since falling behind 9-4 in its first game here — an orange herring, it turned out — Tennessee has outscored its three opponents 21-5. And the Vols are the No. 1 seed for a reason.
Texas A&M is 8-0 in the NCAA tournament and its last loss was on May 23. Who beat the Aggies that day? Right, Tennessee in the SEC tournament, 7-4.
“I don’t think it carries much weight,” Vitello said.
“Tennessee is by far the best team I’ve seen outside of our team this year – pitching, defense, so physical, so well coached,” Schlossnagle said.
It begins Saturday night with Tennessee in the field and Texas A&M at bat. Then at the bottom of the round, things should really get interesting.
Nobody did much against the Aggies throwing in Omaha. Three runs scored in three games, 37 strikeouts. That means 34 percent of plate appearances so far against Texas A&M have ended with a whiff, or watching the umpire’s right arm rise. The starting pitchers were scoreless in 14.2 innings and had 13 more strikeouts than hits allowed. Opponents are 2 for 29 with runners in scoring position. Kaeden Kent, batting eighth in the Aggies’ batting order, has driven in as many runs in three games as all of Texas A&M’s opponents combined. And it goes on and on.
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“I think I say it every time, it’s amazing to watch these guys work,” Kent said. “It’s such a joy to watch. I think it just gives us momentum. They’re minding their own business so we have to help them, right?
No one has been able to stop the Volunteers’ bats all season. Tennessee has scored nine runs per game since February, with the home run count now at 178. The Vols have scored at least 11 runs in five of nine NCAA Tournament games and their minimum is six. Additionally, what do the numbers .571, .500, .308 and .500 mean? These are the Omaha batting averages of the Vols’ first four hitters. The first belongs to Christian Moore. If he keeps this up and Tennessee wins, he would have an excellent chance to be only the second non-pitcher named MCWS MVP in 10 years. The other, Oregon State’s Adley Rutschman, is now an All-Star catcher for the Baltimore Orioles.
Tennessee reliever Kirby Connell described Friday what it was like last fall during intrasquad games against his teammates. Not easy. “You have a lot of guys, 1 through 9, and you have all the guys that helped them get to where they are right now,” he said. “It was tricky. You can’t throw anything at them because you know they can leave the yard whenever they want.
So, with both similarities and contrasts, Tennessee and Texas A&M now face what Connell called “a three-round fight this weekend.”
Tennessee is hitting .321 in the MCWS. Texas A&M’s opponents are hitting .168.
Schlossnagle really wants a first championship. So did Vitello, who worked for him at TCU.
“Most teams don’t know when their season is going to end. We’re pretty sure when ours will end, one way or another,” Schlossnagle said. “It’s a gift. This is a blessing for which we should be grateful.
Both understand that while it will be difficult to get two wins this weekend, it will be exponentially more difficult in the other team’s noisy park. This is how life is on the road in the SEC. “I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but both sides are probably pretty happy that it’s at a neutral site,” Vitello said.
And both understand that they are playing not only for themselves, but also for those who came before them in two successful, popular, proud, but so far untitled programs.
On the Tennessee side, Moore: “For us, this is what we all dreamed of. Now that we get to experience it, I think it’s super cool.”
On the Texas A&M side, Ryan Prager, who will likely be the one throwing to Moore on Saturday night: “I think it would mean a lot because everyone comes to this program because you want to win a championship. You want to be the best. You want to beat the best. You want to play against the best. That’s why you come to a place like this. And it would mean a lot, just (for) the guys who played before us, you see the support they still give. They care. They really care beyond their tenure as a player here. I think just being able to do it for them gives them a sense of accomplishment.
So, one part experiences this feeling of accomplishment very quickly. This is not the case on the other side. It’s as simple as DRY.