How Tennessee baseball approached decisive game with season on the line
Zander Sechrist was aware of what was at stake, though he didn't let on.
Hours before Tennessee's season would be decided in a winner-take-all Game 3 of the Knoxville Super Regional against Evansville on Sunday, the Vols' locker room was calm. The starting pitcher was, too.
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A day after the overachieving Purple Aces put Tennessee's postseason run on the brink on its own home turf, Sechrist played games on his phone. Weather delayed his start another hour, so he took off his cleats and relaxed.
The midweek staple turned weekend starter then pitched the game of his career, sending the Vols to the College World Series for the third time in four years in a 12-1 victory in his final game at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
"It felt like a packed-out Tuesday to be honest, just because I've pitched so many Tuesdays," Sechrist quipped. "The only difference was that NCAA Baseball (logo) was everywhere."
Sechrist went a career-high 6.1 innings, giving up six hits, an unearned run and striking out six. When he hit 100 pitches in the sixth inning, Sechrist shook his head when head coach Tony Vitello attempted to pull him.
Sechrist made it another two pitches, recorded an out and exited to a standing ovation of 6,489 fans.
“Consistency," catcher Cal Stark described Sechrist. "He competed his tail off. He threw–I think every single pitch he threw a strike. So it was really easy to game plan and call pitches for him. I mean, he was unbelievable tonight. He’s what we needed.”
"I will win or lose with (Sechrist) anytime on the field or off the field," Vitello added.
THE VOLREPORT SHOW: Tennessee baseball headed to the College World Series
Sechrist, who wears his goofiness like a badge of honor, led by example on this night—the most important of Tennessee's season to date. When the stakes could have given way to understandable tension, the Vols chose to keep the same approach that had carried them that far.
The result was a complete performance that included a postseason single-game program record seven home runs that put Evansville out of it before the end of the fifth inning.
“We were loose as always. Just having fun," Stark, whose three-run homer in the fifth broke the record, said. "We knew we needed to come here and take care of business tonight, play our game, not think too far ahead. Just focus on our task at hand. It was just pitch-by-pitch, take it one out at a time.”
Now Tennessee can think ahead. The Vols will play 8-seed Florida State at Charles Schwab Field to begin its CWS run this weekend, a familiar spot for a number of Vols players who were a part of Omaha trips in 2021 and last season.
That experience helps.
"You would like to have a vision of what it's like, how to operate with some of that time off that you get and some of the other things," Vitello said. "There's no question it helps. The younger guys on this team have looked to the older guys for leadership so many different times, and that will be one instance that the need to do it for sure."
Tennessee's path to Omaha was paved by the kind of moments Sechrist and the veterans in its batting order had against Evansville, but the newcomers who will experience the CWS for the first time in their careers had their moments, too.
Dalton Bargo, an Omaha native who began his career at Missouri before transferring to Tennessee, entered the lineup as a designated hitter and mashed two home runs to extend the Vols lead in the second and third innings, respectively.
Billy Amick spent the previous two seasons at Clemson. His 23rd homer of the season headlined a four-run fourth and provided one the final exclamation points in a game with everything on the line.
That confidence, backed by the calmness Sechrist showed in the locker room pregame is what got Tennessee back to the CWS, but it was set in motion four months ago in Dallas, where the Vols won two games in three days to win the Shriners Children's College Showdown.
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Though the stage wasn't near as magnificent, it taught Tennessee how to bounce back quickly. That showed after the Vols dropped their second conference series of the season and then responded with nine-straight series wins. It showed again after Tennessee opened the SEC Tournament in Hoover with a loss to Vanderbilt and then ran the table to win the championship. It showed again on Sunday.
"How many times do we go one-to-one, not just in the SEC, but down in Dallas to open the season when it was so important to these guys," Vitello said. "We had a meeting in here, and sometimes there was fire about how many games we wanted to win down there. We wanted to win at least two. I think that experience helped...Vegas doesn't have it right. It's 50-50. They could win or we could win, and then you go home.
"If you didn't put your best foot forward, then you go back and work. But if you did, then that's that. I think that's the mentality that everyone showed up with today."
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