Rexrode: Vols baseball ecstasy adds to Vanderbilt agony, and vice versa
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt was good enough to take this all the way to the end.
Tennessee was on the verge of a quick demise.
Vanderbilt is done, a second straight exit from the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament — the first time in 14 years that Tim Corbin’s program has gone consecutive years without a Super Regional — after a torturous six hours Sunday at Hawkins Field, four of them in weather delay, two of them spent losing 2-1 to Xavier.
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Tennessee could win the College World Series, after a glorious four hours and 43 minutes Saturday at Clemson, so many ways the Vols could have lost and heroes who wouldn’t let them. Tony Vitello’s team, which was in danger of missing this tournament a few weeks ago, beat the No. 4 seed 6-5 in 14 innings, watched the Tigers fail to rebound early Sunday, then throttled Charlotte 9-2 to win the Clemson Regional. UT is likely hosting a Super Regional next.
Prepare for takeoff 🛫#GBO // #OTH // #VolsWin pic.twitter.com/R2fvChEdUJ
— Tennessee Baseball (@Vol_Baseball) June 5, 2023
That opportunity — against the winner of Monday’s Auburn Regional championship between Southern Miss and Penn — doesn’t just represent a dramatic turnaround, it’s a chance to atone for a year ago when No. 1 seed/clear tournament favorite Tennessee was stunned by Notre Dame in the Knoxville Super Regional.
Oh, and a chance to keep rubbing it in Vanderbilt’s face. Not that anyone in any official Tennessee capacity will be doing so. But be honest, Vols fans: Your team’s glorious weekend is a little sweeter because of Vanderbilt’s rotten one, right?
Same request, Vanderbilt fans: You’d be able to handle this disappointment a bit more easily if you didn’t have to watch Tennessee advance, right?
No need to say anything. When the Vols blew it a year ago, I swear Vanderbilt fans enjoyed it more than Notre Dame fans. They were all over it. My column about the Vols and their overblown “bad boy” image got more Vanderbilt fans commenting than Tennessee fans.
And on Sunday, shortly after the Commodores came back from the endless delay to go down meekly and in order in the ninth, on a day of befuddling offensive ineptitude, Tennessee fans were ready. I know they’re excited about their own team. But they’re also awfully enthused about the failure of their rival to the west. Corbin, Vanderbilt players, Vanderbilt fans, Vanderbilt beat writers — Vol Twitter is making time for all of them right now.
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And this is what’s great about an in-state rivalry between two programs that can regularly compete for national championships. This is the only one of those between Tennessee and Vanderbilt. This sport has been the domain of two-time national champ Corbin and one of college athletics’ model programs over the past two decades.
Tennessee is still new money. But if the Vols sandwich Omaha trips around last year’s historically good team/bad outcome, they’re close to getting that country club invite. Do they still have to prove they can succeed in Omaha? And that Vitello can sustain this recruiting and success? Yes. Do you know who will bring those things up constantly? Yes, you do.
I have no doubt there will be a little extra teeth-gritting at the thought of the Vols advancing from some of the folks who were wearing Vanderbilt baseball uniforms Sunday as well. And that some of those wearing Tennessee uniforms shared some chuckles and fist bumps when told of Vanderbilt’s elimination.
This has become a very intense rivalry on the field, not just in terms of fan discourse. The Vols’ surprising home sweep of the Commodores on April 21-23 changed seasons that were on totally different trajectories at the time. Both coaches recently acknowledged the impact of that series, though Vanderbilt recovered to be a national seed and win the SEC Tournament.
The Vols needed that and used it and are 18-5 since freshman pinch hitter Dylan Dreiling hit a dramatic tying homer off Vandy closer Nick Maldonado in the ninth and Griffin Merritt walked it off with a blast in the 12th. It was an epic win, though “epic win” was redefined Saturday.
UT was down to its last strike twice in the ninth, down 4-2 against Clemson ace Caden Grice. He was destined for a complete-game masterpiece, sending UT to the losers bracket where it would have to figure a way to beat Clemson twice. But Blake Burke got a single through, following up Christian Moore’s single, and Zane Denton launched a three-run bomb off reliever Ryan Ammons.
THIS HAS TO BE A DREAM
VOLS PUT TWO ON WITH TWO OUTS AND ZANE BLASTS A THREE-RUN SHOT TO GIVE TENNESSEE THE LEAD DOWN TO ITS FINAL STRIKE pic.twitter.com/ekdI48lTSQ
— Tennessee Baseball (@Vol_Baseball) June 4, 2023
And then Clemson — coached by Corbin protégé’ Erik Bakich — tied it and appeared to win it in the 10th. And Chase Burns and Moore and Seth Halvorsen and Hunter Ensley and Ethan Payne and others came through with clutch moment after clutch moment. Burns “gave me the Heisman,” Vitello told reporters, when Vitello tried to remove him at one point, and he ended up throwing 99 pitches in 6 1/3 innings of spectacular relief.
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Burns was the freshman who let Notre Dame overtake the Vols — Vitello later questioning whether he should have removed him earlier — in the deciding game a year ago. He was one of the reasons this team was ranked No. 2 in the preseason, and among many reasons it wasn’t ready to live up to that. Look at him now. Look at the Vols now.
“Our team has kind of moved forward and formed its own personality,” Vitello said. “We have come together.”
Vanderbilt came together in the conference tournament as well, and like Tennessee, has a lot of arms to offer and a lineup that ebbs and flows. The Commodores ended up not being able to overcome the injury and absence of ace Carter Holton, who perhaps could have returned at some point later in the postseason. And they failed at the plate in countless opportunities in Saturday’s 8-7 loss to Oregon and Sunday’s against Xavier.
It was especially tough for Vanderbilt to see star junior center fielder Enrique Bradfield go 0-for-8 in those games to (all but officially) end his tremendous college career.
“I’m a leader on this team and I didn’t have my best go,” Bradfield said. “It’s life. It happens.”
He went on, in an impressive show of perspective under the circumstances, to talk about how important and transformational the Vanderbilt program was for him. He’ll be fine, in Major League Baseball and beyond. And Vanderbilt baseball will be fine too. At least for as long as the 61-year-old Corbin is around.
It’s worth wondering at the end of every season now how seriously he’ll consider retiring. He and his wife, Maggie, had real talks about it after last season. He did not sound like a coach preparing to move on to something else after Sunday’s loss. He did sound emotionally spent when asked about the future of the program.
“I’m not thinking like that right now,” Corbin said. “From Aug. 22 to right now, (we’re) going hard, it’s every day, it’s just days (that end) in Y, no freaking days off. Jesus. You just go and go and go and go and then it shuts down on you. It’s a suck pill. It just sucks.”
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Vanderbilt needs more pro-level hitters to emerge, and the rapidly changing landscape of college sports doesn’t necessarily help. But the safe money right now is on Corbin re-energizing and putting together contending teams until he doesn’t want to do it anymore.
In the meantime, the Vols are playing longer than the Commodores for the second straight year, after both got to Omaha in 2021 and Vanderbilt took it all the way to the final game before losing to Mississippi State.
The dream of a Vanderbilt-Tennessee meeting in the 2023 College World Series finals died Sunday. The lively conversation between Vanderbilt and Tennessee fans did not.
(Photo of Vanderbilt players looking Sunday on as Xavier celebrates on the field: Matthew Maxey / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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