OMAHA, Nebraska — And that's why they play those games.
On paper, Tennessee shouldn't have had any problems with Texas A&M in Game 1 of the Men's College World Series final.
The Volunteers are the number one ranked team in the country and have been since early May. Entering Saturday night's contest, the Vols had posted a near-perfect 8-1 record in the NCAA tournament, this following their great Orange home court in Hoover, Alabama, during the SEC tournament in the way to the title. After topping their side of the MCWS bracket, they entered the best-of-three title fight with a healthy and ridiculously well-rested roster that includes at least two players whose names will be announced in the first round of next month's MLB draft. . Las Vegas bettors rightfully had UT installed as their favorite.
Meanwhile, Texas A&M was eliminated from the SEC tournament in two games, including a 7-4 loss to Tennessee, lost its first-round surety for the rest of the postseason due to a broken ankle, lost its No. 2 pitcher by an arm injury the next day, his leading home run hitter injured a hamstring running the bases, and he saw his catcher/spiritual leader and designated hitter use more ice bags than a colony of penguins. Every time the Aggies walk through the lobby of their hotel adjacent to Charles Schwab Field, they look like a TV commercial for an EMT supply store. During Friday's pre-final press conference, Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle continued to apologize for everything, repeating over and over, “Man, I really wish we were 100 percent. I'm sorry.”
So, naturally, it was A&M who handed the Volunteers a surprising Texas-sized 9-5 loss on Saturday night. Suddenly, it's the Aggies who are one win away from a first MCWS title and the Vols who are nursing their wounds. Mental wounds.
“You find out different ways to respond,” Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said after his first game of the MCWS finals. “You can get frustrated because tonight was like that or you can become more determined… and where determination comes, the game increases.”
Moments later, in the hallway, he added: “And if you don't come out of a night like this more determined, then you don't pick it up. They knock you down again.”
Because this is not Strat-O-Matic. The Men's College World Series is not played on paper or even in a sports book. It's real life. With real life lessons. Now, we find out who learns what and how they use it in Sunday afternoon's Game 2, which will either anoint the Aggies or set up a decisive Game 3 on Monday night.
“We'll get on the bus and I'll congratulate them on the win,” Schlossnagle said of his plans for how to handle his team after the win puts the Aggies in the MCWS drivers' seat; That's easily explained but it's a psychological challenge. “It's a 'game more' mentality before the most important game of their lives. “They know it's a game. We all know what is at stake. There is no Lombardi speech. We just try to keep it as relaxed as possible. Tomorrow we'll hit in the cages, get our ground balls and play. I know. “It sounds coachy, but if you start thinking about other things besides that, Tennessee will run you out of the stadium.”
For Vitello, the relatively good news from a bad night is that his team overcame the seemingly invincible stalemate of a 7-1 deficit in the third inning and a 7-2 score that stretched into the seventh, somewhat relieved by a back more characteristic. Back-to-back home runs cut the lead to four and finally began to push A&M through a bullpen it had been able to ignore for a week. Then another flourish of hits had the potential run to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth. Even more importantly, a bank that in years past has struggled on the big stage to remain calm continued its upward trend in 2023-24 of not allowing adversity to become an unnecessary emotional problem at decidedly inconvenient times.
Saturday night was close to the boiling point, a couple of times, but the Vols found the knob to turn down the heat.
“I think you just play baseball,” Vitello said of his message as he watched his team, and himself, begin to move their emotional tachometers into the red. “You make sure you don't put too much stock in crowd size and things like that. You lose sight of the fundamentals. The important things that happen in a game, like communication, focus on any given task. It's true, in any aspect of “whatever life you're talking about, simple is better.”
For Schlossnagle there are the good vibes of the good start, the big initial advantage and, of course, the victory itself. But there's also his team's ability to maintain its composure when Tennessee threatened to rally and, even in the midst of that mess, managed to use only four pitchers on the night and none for more than the four innings worked by ace Ryan Prager. The last of those pitchers, reliever Evan Aschenbeck, emerged from the ninth-inning hole, striking out the final two batters with runners on the corners, the last of the A&M staff's 17 Ks, the most recorded in an MCWS nine – late inning contest, against the deadliest college baseball offense in America.
“We had maybe the best lineup in the country in five races with the wind blowing and in the middle of such a stunning environment,” the coach said of the Aggies' efforts in front of a standing-room-only crowd of 26,498.
As he began his departure that night, to take that discreet bus ride, one win away from Texas A&M's first MCWS title, he added, still clutching the final stat sheet with that limited Tennessee production: “Man, if I can Saco The positive thing about this, I need to find another job!”
“We all do this to be in this position,” Aschenbeck said. “All you ever want is a chance to do something special. But taking care of business one night doesn't guarantee you'll do it again the next.”
Again, that's why they play. Only one or two of those games left before this national title is determined? If we learned anything else Saturday night, it's that it's useless to assume we know what will happen until the games are actually played.
