Dylan Dreiling delivered in biggest moment of Tennessee's season
OMAHA, Neb. — Kavares Tears said he noticed it last fall. Blake Burke noticed it in the second game of the season a year ago.
What they saw from Dylan Dreiling in the biggest moment of Tennessee's season Friday against Florida State came as no surprise.
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The Vols' sophomore outfielder stepped up to the plate in the bottom of a ninth inning that had already been marked by a plethora of heroic moments—Tears' lead off triple and Burke's game-tying two RBI single among them. Dreiling provided one more, driving Connor Hults' pitch to deep center field, sending Charles Schwab Field into pandemonium and making Tennessee's College World Series path more manageable in a 12-11 victory.
For Burke, it was a moment that was more than a year in the making. He could see it in Dreiling's first collegiate at-bat as a freshman against Grand Canyon in 2022. He has seen it several more times over the last four months. Late Friday night, the rest of the country saw it, too.
"I believed in him," Burke said. "(Dreiling's) first at-bat as a Tennessee Vol, he was a pinch hitter against (Grand Canyon) and it was a tight spot. It was a very mature at-bat for him. He went in there and got the job done. Ever since he's stepped in, he's kind of had that confidence to him."
Tears noticed Dreiling's potential a little sooner, though he wasn't sure what to expect when he first arrived.
It took one scrimmage in the fall two years ago to give him an idea.
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"For a minute, I didn't know (how good Dreiling could be)," Tears said. "When he first got here and we started scrimmage in the fall and some of our better arms, he was just handling them like it was nothing. I was like, 'This is unreal.'"
If Florida State didn't know, it does now and it learned in the most soul-crushing fashion after leading Tennessee by four runs heading into the eighth inning.
It was a game that was trending in the direction of so many other Vols' CWS games. Tennessee gave up a run in the top of the first, responded with four runs over the next two innings and then gave up six in the third to fall behind 9-4.
If that deficit had held, it wouldn't have ended the Vols' season, but it would have put them in a tough position, facing Virginia in an elimination game on Sunday.
Instead, Tennessee, which won its opening game of the CWS for the first time since 1995, will head into Sunday's contest against North Carolina, with less pressure and plenty of confidence.
And there's reason to be confident. The Vols have been in situations similar to the one they found themselves in Friday, only this time the stakes were higher than they've been all year.
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Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello could hardly stand it himself, reaching down to grab clumps of dirt outside of the dugout and clinching them in his fists as he watched each pitch intently. But there wasn't a moment he didn't feel like his team wouldn't pull it out.
Players like Dreiling are why.
"I think I was the least composed of that group," Vitello said. "But I assure you that I was confident...But honestly, in that situation, what the conversation is, let's just make sure we get a baserunner. And then I feel like our lineup is capable."
"With this offense we're always one inning away," Dreiling added. "That's kind of our motto this year. And we just had a belief that a big inning was coming and just trusting each other."
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