Great pitching and timely hitting carry the Vols to Omaha
Tennessee is headed back to Omaha, and it's thanks in large part to its pitching performance in the postseason. Drew Beam pitching 6 scoreless innings, Chase Burns slammed the door, and the Vols topped Southern Miss 5-0 in Game 3 of the Hattiesburg Super Regional. The game was delayed from a 6:00 pm ET start […]
Tennessee is headed back to Omaha, and it's thanks in large part to its pitching performance in the postseason.
Drew Beam pitching 6 scoreless innings, Chase Burns slammed the door, and the Vols topped Southern Miss 5-0 in Game 3 of the Hattiesburg Super Regional. The game was delayed from a 6:00 pm ET start time until first pitch at 10:06 pm ET due to yet another weather delay.
Beam was on top of his game, with his mid-to-upper-90s fastball spotting, along with a slurve that was simply untouchable. Starting ahead in the count was key for Beam, who threw first-pitch strikes to 17 of the 27 batters he faced. He allowed 7 hits and 1 walk while striking out 7 in 6 innings, giving way in the 7th inning after the first two batters reached base.
Aaron Combs came on for UT and struck out Matthew Etzel. Tony Vitello immediately turned to Chase Burns, who mowed down Dustin Dickerson and Slade Burns – the latter on a 102 mph fastball – to get the Vols out of a jam.
Burns walked one and struck out four, with his triple-digit fastball being too much for the Golden Eagles to handle. He drew swing-and-miss after swing-and-miss from the Souther Miss hitters, who simply couldn't catch up to it even when they knew it was coming.
Thanks to the prolific performances from Beam and Burns, Tennessee didn't need to do much on offense to take the game. The Vols broke through early in the 2nd inning when Griffin Merritt squeezed a ground ball through the right side of the infield to score Christian Moore.
But it was Zane Denton – again – who came up with the big knock that put Tennessee in prime position to pull off another huge postseason win on the road. With Moore and Maui Ahuna on second and third with 2 outs in the bottom of the 5th, Denton cleared the wall in right-center field for a 4-0 lead.
Tennessee tacked on another run to get out of grand slam range when Ahuna led off the inning with a home run off the left-center field scoreboard. And the way Burns was controlling his fastball, that was way more than the Vols needed. With two on and two out in the top of the 9th inning, Burns got Dickerson – who was a thorn in the Vols' side in USM's Game One 5-3 win – to line out to first baseman Blake Burke, and the celebration was on.
In a season that seemed lost halfway through the SEC slate, when the Vols were 5-10 in league play, Tennessee is headed to college baseball's mecca with a legitimate chance at the title. And they can thank their stable of arms for getting there. Since the Golden Eagles went ahead 4-0 Sunday afternoon in the 3rd inning of Game 2, Tennessee's pitching staff shut out the Golden Eagles for the last 15 innings of the Super Regional.
Between that and the five scoreless extra innings in the Clemson regional opener against the Tigers, the Vols' pitching has proved it's rising to the top when the pressure is on, which is what ultimately sent them home one year ago against Notre Dame.
Now, with a trio of starters in Andrew Lindsey, Chase Dollander, and Drew Beam peaking together at the right time, and with Chase Burns backing them up out of the bullpen, Tennessee's starting pitching is as good as any in the country right now. And that could lead to more special things before this season is done.
Featured image via Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK
