Tennessee’s 2023 baseball season may or may not come to a close Monday.
The Volunteers made sure Sunday wasn’t the expiration date.
After losing their NCAA super regional opener 5-3 to Southern Miss early Sunday afternoon, the Vols faced a 4-0 deficit through three innings of the second game against Golden Eagles star pitcher Tanner Hall. From there, Tennessee flipped a switch that resulted in an 8-4 triumph that is resulting in a third and deciding showdown Monday at Pete Taylor Park for a journey to the College World Series.
The Vols erupted for six runs in the fourth inning, which is more runs than Hall allowed in any game this season.
“There was a lot of fight with the whole group,” Vols coach Tony Vitello said Sunday night in a news conference. “We didn’t have that stuff going on earlier in the year where we responded like that after a difficult inning. As the season went on, we’ve come together.
“We’ll look forward to tomorrow to see if we can continue to do that.”
The winner of Monday’s 6 p.m. matchup (ESPN2) between the Vols (42-20) and Golden Eagles (46-19) will advance to play LSU in Omaha, Nebraska, where the College World Series begins Friday.
Hall entered Sunday with a 12-3 record and a 2.08 ERA, but it was Tennessee counterpart Chase Dollander who better handled adversity and wound up working into the ninth inning. Dollander racked up seven strikeouts and threw 111 pitches before being replaced after a leadoff walk in the ninth by Chase Burns, who needed only 10 pitches to shut the door on the Sun Belt champs.
Of course, taking the mound with a 6-4 lead after having walked off the mound with a 4-0 deficit were two very different feelings.
“That definitely calmed me down a lot, just knowing that these guys have my back,” Dollander said. “I just started throwing more strikes and attacking hitters the way I needed to. Things just started to take off for me.”
Christopher Sargent’s three-run home run to left-center field provided the Golden Eagles their 4-0 lead, but the Vols got going in the fourth with Christian Moore’s double to left and Griffin Merritt’s one-out RBI single to right. Blake Burke then launched a two-run homer to right that was measured at a staggering 479 feet to make it a 4-3 game.
“He earned a Dairy Queen birthday cake,” Vitello said of Burke. “Today was his birthday.”
Cal Stark drew a huge two-out walk, which was followed by a Maui Ahuna single to center and Hunter Ensley being hit by a pitch to load the bases. Jared Dickey then connected for a single to center that scored Stark and Ahuna to give Tennessee its first lead of the super regional, and Ensley made it 6-4 on a fielding error by Matthew Etzel in center.
Merritt would finish 4-for-5, while Burke and Dickey each drove in two runs.
“They were just getting their timely hits,” Hall said. “It wasn’t really something I felt like I was doing different. I felt like I was making the same pitches, but I left a pitch or two up, and they capitalized on my mistakes along with some mistakes in the field.
“I think that’s why they were able to get that momentum and keep rolling and just made that inning a lot longer than it should have been.”
Southern Miss is trying to get to the College World Series in coach Scott Berry’s final season. Should the Golden Eagles advance to Omaha, there would be the sizable storyline of a potential third consecutive national champion for the Magnolia State, with Mississippi State having won it in 2021 and Ole Miss last year.
For Tennessee, a victory would clinch a second CWS trip in three years and result in this team going a step further than last year, when the Vols were the NCAA tournament’s top overall seed.
“Tomorrow is a survival,” Berry said. “We faced it in Auburn last week, where we either win or the season is over, and obviously we’re in the same situation. Dollander was really good today. He was still touching 96 and 97 (mph) in the ninth inning, and then Burns comes in, and he’s triple digits.”
Said Vitello: “We’ve been given another day to try and come together a little bit more.”
Drew Beam (8-4, 4.09) is scheduled to start for Tennessee, with Niko Mazza (5-1, 4.13) scheduled for Southern Miss.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.