Tennessee baseball eliminated in Super Regionals: Three takeaways
A dream season for Tennessee baseball ended in dramatic disappointment Sunday. After spending most of the year ranked No. 1, winning the SEC regular season and tournament championship and entering the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed, the Vols lost their NCAA Super Regional to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in three games.
UT was sent home Sunday after allowing three runs in both the seventh and the eighth innings to lose 7-3, blowing a 3-1 lead. That came after they spotted Notre Dame an 8-1 lead in an 8-6 loss Friday. They won Saturday 12-4. Rocky Top has never reached two straight College World Series.
With the loss, the Vols’ season ends at 57-9. Notre Dame, meanwhile, improves to 40-15 under third-year head coach Link Jarrett and is in the midst of their second straight upset weekend, as they were not the highest seed in the regional either. Here are three things we learned from Tennessee baseball’s Super Regional loss.
1. Starting pitchers had a bad weekend, aided by bad management.
Chase Dollander was the only starting pitcher to have a solid performance, allowing two runs in seven innings on Saturday. However, Blade Tidwell allowed five runs in three innings Friday as Notre Dame took a 5-0 lead early, which is how they broke the game open.
On Sunday, without pitching coach Frank Anderson, who was suspended, Vitello made the mistake of leaving in Chase Burns one inning too long. Burns gave up two home runs in the seventh to turn a 3-1 lead into a 4-3 deficit. There were other defensive issues, but the mistakes by the starters, one that falls on the coach, got this rolling.
2. Errors in the field and on the base paths made it worse.
On both Friday and Sunday, Tennessee baseball committed two errors. Neither was a huge deal Friday, as one allowed a runner to advance who would have scored anyway. However it was part of a larger trend and proved devastating on Sunday.
With the game still close and UT trailing 4-3 in the eighth, Trey Lipscomb made a bad throw on what should’ve been a second out. After another sacrifice, Notre Dame scored two runs. Then, down 7-3, in the bottom of the inning, Drew Gilbert tried to steal second with one out and was caught, which was unnecessary given the deficit.
3. Lack of big innings kept the Vols’ offense at bay.
Normally, the Vols do well thanks to an onslaught of home runs in a particular inning, and they won Saturday with eight runs in the fifth. However, Notre Dame kept them from having those innings despite the potential far too often. On Friday, UT only had one inning with more than one run, and they had none on Sunday.
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On top of that, Tennessee baseball stranded nine runners in every inning they scored those two games. Sunday saw them strand five runners in the innings they scored, including the fifth when they had runners on first and second with one out and couldn’t cash in after already scoring one. That ended up making a huge difference.