Tennessee baseball survived a thriller of an elimination game this afternoon and advanced to see another day in Omaha.
Tennessee baseball faced off against the Stanford Cardinals today in an elimination game after falling just short to LSU on Saturday. Stanford also lost their closely contested battle to the No. 1 seeded Wake Forest, which resulted in an elimination game for both of the teams. Stanford took an early lead, going up 4-0 on the Vols ace of a pitcher, Chase Dollander, and head coach Tony Vitello had to make an adjustment.
Vitello went with their reliever to kick off the fourth inning by the name of Chase Burns, and the rest was history. The right-handed assassin went 6 straight shutout innings and led the Volunteers to their first win in Omaha under coach Tony Vitello.
The only thing left for the Vols to do is to wait. Tennessee baseball will take on the loser of either Wake Forest or LSU, which will begin tonight at 7:00 pm. Tennessee will take on the loser in their game tomorrow night.
What is the best option for the Vols?
In my opinion, I think the Vols would rather have another shot at LSU before having to worry about the beasts of Wake Forest. The Volunteers had to go against arguably the best pitcher in all of college baseball, and some are even calling him the best pitcher in the world. His name is Paul Skenes, the LSU ace, and if you weren’t able to catch the game on Saturday, he was an absolute nightmare for the Vols’ offense and will definitely be a problem to any offense that has to face him.
It’s extremely unlikely that if the Vols get to play LSU tomorrow night, he will be able to pitch again. If you remove Skenes from the mound and let LSU rely on depth, I feel pretty confident that Drew Beam will be able to win the battle against any other LSU pitcher that they put on the mound.
Obviously, this is all hypothetical, but If this all happens and the Vols are left with just Wake Forest, then watch out, College Baseball world, because once the Vols get hot, they can’t be stopped.
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