MCWS Finals Game 1: Texas A&M is in good position to win MCWS, but Tennessee isn’t counted out

OMAHA, Neb. — And that’s why they play games.

On paper, Tennessee shouldn’t have any trouble with Texas A&M in Game 1 of the men’s college World Series final.

The Volunteers are the No. 1 ranked team in the nation and have been since early May. Entering Saturday night’s contest, the Vols posted a near-perfect 8-1 NCAA tournament record, which comes after scorched their Big Orange field in Hoover, Alabama, in the SEC tournament en route to the championship. Having swept their MCWS group, they enter the best-of-three title match with a healthy and well-rested squad that includes at least two players who will be named in the first round of the tournament MLB next month. Las Vegas bettors have sensibly installed UT as their favorites.

Meanwhile, Texas A&M was eliminated from the SEC tournament in two games, including a 7-4 loss to Tennessee, losing its surefire first-round pick for the rest of the season due to a broken ankle, losing No. 2 pitcher on one arm. injured the very next day, the offensive player who leads its home run has to tweak his hamstring running the bases and seeing the catcher/spiritual leader and designated hitter wearing more ice packs than a flock of penguins. Whenever the Aggies pass through the hotel lobby next to Charles Schwab Field, they look like a television commercial for an EMT supply store. In Friday’s pre-final news conference, Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle repeatedly apologized for it all, repeating: “Man, I really wish we were 100 percent.” Sorry.”

So naturally, it was A&M that gave the Volunteers a Texas-sized vehicle Disappointed on 9-5 loss on Saturday night. Suddenly, the Aggies were one win away from their first MCWS title and the Vols were nursing their wounds. Mental wounds.

“You find different ways to react,” Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said after the first MCWS final. “You can feel disappointed that the night went the way it did or you can be more determined … and when the determination appears, play on.”

A moment later, in the hallway, he added, “And if you’re not more determined after a night like this then you won’t kick it up. You’ll get kicked down again.”

Because this is no Strat-O-Matic. The Men’s College World Series isn’t played on paper or even in the sportsbook. That’s real life. With real life lessons. Now we find out who learned what and how they use it in Game 2 on Sunday afternoon that will 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 plan for how to handle his team after the win puts the Aggies in the MCWS driver’s seat — it’s easy to explain easy but mentally challenging “it’s just another game” before the biggest match of their lives. “They know this is a game. We all know what’s at stake. There was no Lombardi speech. We just tried to keep it as loose as possible. We’re going to hit the cage and get the ball in the field tomorrow and compete. I know that sounds coaching, but if you start thinking about things other than that, Tennessee will blow you out of the ballpark.”

For Vitello, the relatively good news after a bad night was that his team overcame a seemingly insurmountable doldrums of a 7-1 deficit in the third period and a 7-2 run that lasted through the period. seven, somewhat tempered by a more characteristic return. -back-to-back homers cut the lead to four and finally began pushing A&M past a bullpen it had been able to ignore for a week. Then another series of hits had the potential to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth. Even more importantly, a bench that in past years has struggled on big stages to keep its composure has continued its upward trend in 2023-24 of not letting adversity become a problem unnecessary emotions at clearly inconvenient times.

On Saturday night, the temperature was near boiling at times, but the Vols found the knob to turn down the heat.

“I thought you just played baseball,” Vitello said of his message as he saw his team — and himself — begin to turn their emotional meter into the red. “You make sure you don’t put too much pressure on crowd size and things like that. You lose the fundamentals. The important things that happen in a game, like communication, practice Focusing on any given task. That’s true in whatever you’re talking about in life, simple is better.”

For Schlossnagle, there were positive emotions about the hot start, the big early lead and of course the victory. But there was also his team’s ability to stay calm when Tennessee threatened to rally and that — even in the midst of that mayhem — he still managed to use only four pitchers on the night and no using any pitcher for more than four rounds has worked as ace Ryan Prager. The final hurler, reliever Evan Aschenbeck, dug himself out of the hole in that ninth inning, striking out the final two batters with runners on the corners, the last of the staff’s 17 Ks A&M — the most scored in MCWS nine-inning finals — against America’s most dangerous college baseball team.

“We probably fielded the best lineup in the country for five runs with the wind blowing and amid a great setting,” the coach said of the Aggies’ efforts before a standing-room-only crowd of 26,498. so”.

As he started to leave that night, to make that easy trip on the bus, one win away from Texas A&M’s first MCWS title, he added, still clutching the final stat sheet with the product that limited amount of Tennessee: “Man, if I can take a positive from this, I need to find another job!”

“We all did this to get to this position,” Aschenbeck said. “All you want is a chance to do something special. But taking care of business one night doesn’t guarantee that you’ll keep doing it the next time.”

Again, that’s why they play the game. Is there just one or two more games left before this national title is decided? If we learn nothing else on Saturday night then it’s useless to assume we know what will happen until the games are actually played.