OMAHA, Nebraska — Texas A&M and Tennessee have waited 73 years to finally win a Men's College World Series championship. So what's another day? A day in which this year's series could have ended with an Aggies celebration ended instead with a 1-1 push that led to a deciding game in Game 3 on Monday night, thanks to the push in the late innings of a 4-1 victory by the top seed. Vols.
“To think you're going to pass in two games, that would be nice,” Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle confessed, smiling. “But now we can play. We don't have to play. We can play in the last college baseball game of the season, and that's awesome.”
“There were no trophies or rings or belts handed out today,” Tennessee's Tony Vitello said. “But what we do have is another opportunity to play one more game with this team, and it turns out it will be for a national championship.”
In the stadium tunnel, just outside the room where both head coaches held a press conference, their teams passed each other in the hallway, the Aggies waiting to board their bus, the Volunteers leaving the field after their own questions and answers. after victory. The SEC rivals, with sweat-stained uniforms and black eyes streaked across their faces, shook hands and nodded to each other in recognition of a shared experience.
One player shouted to the others: “Men in the arena! I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted!”
Diamonds are created using pressure, tension and heat, and while no diamonds were delivered on the Men's College World Series diamond Sunday afternoon, there was certainly a Nebraska-sized surplus of pressure, tension and heat. A game that remained 1-0 for more than six innings. A standing-room-only crowd of 25,987 had crawled and climbed to every corner of Charles Schwab Stadium that offered even the slightest view. All on a clear afternoon in Omaha, with an air temperature of 90ºC, humidity of 80% and field conditions that seemed as if both figures had been multiplied by two.
The entire day was played both through the mirror and under the heat of it. Texas A&M's depleted pitching staff (“It'll take a village,” Schlossnagle said at the start of the weekend) kept Tennessee's supposedly vicious offense at bay. At one point, the Vols' bats were a brutal 0-for-16 with runners on base and 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. The Aggies had managed to protect a 1-0 lead generated by a solo home run in the first inning through a series of high-level defensive plays. The most heartbreakingly memorable moment was a questionably slow, soft throw by second baseman Kaeden Kent, who was pushed to first base to reach a half-shoelace ahead of the runner, stranding three Vols on base.
But when Tennessee finally got to that 1-for-17 statistic, it was a very big Orange “1” in the form of a two-run home run by left fielder Dylan Dreiling. It was the first time A&M, previously undefeated in the NCAA tournament, had lost a game in this year's MCWS and never regained the lead. However, as a feature of the contest, the Aggies had the potential game-winning run on deck with no outs in the bottom of the ninth, only to end the game with runners on the corners, abandoned after a warning track fly ball by 372 feet. Also hanging, probably slowed by winds suddenly blowing in from Iowa.
“We live by the idea of one play at a time, one inning at a time, one game at a time, and I think we do a great job with that,” said A&M pitcher Chris Cortez, who held off Tennessee for more than four innings in the middle of the game. “But there's no way you can't feel that tension, especially since the 1-0 score didn't change for so long. It feels like something had to give. And it did.”
“There were a couple of moments where I thought, 'Hey, we need to relax or change the charm a little bit,'” Vitello agreed. “That tension that maybe popped up once or twice since we got here is clearly not working.”
A few minutes later, as the coach walked off the stage and headed to meet his team, he added: “You could really feel that tension, couldn't you? Like in the whole stadium.”
That was true. A walk through the packed stands brought with it a strange silence, the stadium organ and the occasional sectional ovation standing out more than usual. Even when Tennessee ran onto the field to celebrate the victory, the roar that was heard was short-lived.
It's understandable. There is still work to be done, and no one knows it better than those dressed in maroon or Big Orange. Neither program has ever won a national baseball title. They shared their first MCWS appearance in 1951, A&M went home early and Tennessee suffered an upset loss in the title game to Oklahoma. In the seven-plus decades since then, both have suffered years of baseball irrelevance, despite big budgets and even better high school talent in the state. Over the last decade, both have become baseball powerhouses, but neither has managed to rack up wins in June.
In other words, harsh heat is nothing new in College Station or Knoxville.
“I would have really liked to have gotten it all done tonight,” Schlossnagle said, involuntarily glancing at the paperwork in his hand, no doubt already sorting out the availability of his pitching staff. “But I guess there's something poetic about a season that starts in February and a postseason that started a month ago, players who have worked for this all their lives and all these years of our fans waiting for the chance to win it. “All of that would happen tomorrow. in Game 3.”
The intervening 26 hours will be filled with all those players looking for ways to stay relaxed, those coaches analyzing stats, trends and shot counts, and those fans on both sides having beer-marinated discussions about everything.
“I left one of my damn Air Pods, so I only had one (Friday night) and I could hear the party on the street, so it was hard to sleep last night,” Vitello said, laughing. “I'll play both. For me, just use a sound machine, brown noise instead of white noise. But yeah, you have to eat. You have to rest. I have friends and family.” “I'm in town, but I can't enjoy Omaha tonight like they can. I guess you've got to be a guy, because the team is probably eager to get back to playing that old backyard baseball rematch.”
Everybody is. After all, it's been a long wait.
