OMAHA, Nebraska — Christian Moore hit a leadoff home run, Dylan Dreiling homered for the third time in three games and Tennessee won its first baseball national championship with a 6-5 victory over Texas A&M on Monday night in the third series game. Men's College World Series Finals.
The Volunteers rebounded from a Game 1 loss to win two in a row and become the first No. 1 national team in the NCAA tournament to win the title since Miami in 1999.
Tennessee (60-13) limited the Aggies' offense (averaging 8.5 runs per game for the season) to six runs over the final 20 innings of the finale, with Zander Sechrist and Nate Snead doing the heavy lifting on Monday before the Aggies arrived. He came back to score four runs and get the tying run at the plate in the ninth.
Aaron Combs struck out Hayden Schott and Ted Burton to end the game and sparked a Tennessee celebration behind the pitcher's mound.
“Kids are tough these days. They'll do what you ask them to do,” Vols coach Tony Vitello said. “I know our fans got us through that tough inning. It was a group effort on the mound. If you're in the SEC, you're going to be a superstar player, but you've got to be a good teammate, and that's all these were. guys.”
Minutes after the final pitch, Vitello, 45, hugged his father, Greg, a successful high school baseball and football coach in St. Louis.
“I felt like I was the father and he was the child because he wouldn't stop crying,” Vitello said. “I had to rub some dirt on it.”
Vitello jumped into the stands to share a group hug with fans, players walked a lap around the warning track high-fiving fans, and Kavares Tears crouched in right field enjoying the moment with a towel over his eyes.
The Vols are the eighth Southeastern Conference school to win a national baseball title. Those eight have combined for 16 titles. The SEC has won five straight championships, all from different schools, and 10 of the last 15.
Texas A&M threatened to reduce a 3-1 deficit in the sixth and seventh innings, but Snead got the Vols out of trouble both times.
Dreiling, the MCWS Most Outstanding Player, hit his 23rd home run of the season, and Hunter Ensley evaded Jackson Appel's tag at the plate when he scored on Tears' double to make it 6-1 in the eighth. Since the CWS best-of-three finals began in 2003, Dreiling is the only player to hit a home run in three games.
The Vols' two home runs on Monday moved them into a tie with the 1998 LSU team for the most in an NCAA tournament (37) and gave them 184 for the season, four behind the NCAA record of 188 in the 1997 LSU team.
Texas A&M (53-15) created some anxiety for the Vols in the eighth, scoring twice and threatening to score more with two runners on base and one out. Kirby Connell struck out Kaeden Kent on three pitches and Ryan Targac on four. Connell pumped his left fist twice, yelled and jumped down the third base line on his way back to the dugout.
The Aggies scored twice in the top of the ninth, the second run coming home on a wild pitch, to make it a one-run game before Combs finished it off.
“It's hard to take,” Aggies coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “If you make it this far, you'll want to win your last game.”
Among the fans in attendance dressed in Tennessee Orange were Volunteers football great Peyton Manning, Vols football coach Josh Heupel, Vols men's basketball coach Rick Barnes and music artist country Morgan Wallen. The temperature at first pitch was a humid 98 degrees, with most Vols fans in direct sun along the third base side into the middle innings and in the outfield stands until sunset.
Moore distracted them from the heat, at least for a moment, when he drove Justin Lamkin's fourth pitch, a fly fastball, off the back wall of the left-field bullpen for his team-leading 34th home run of the season. Moore, who hit for the cycle in the Vols' win over Florida State in their MCWS opener, hit .370 (10-for-27) in Omaha with two home runs, two triples and two doubles.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
