Tennessee Drops Game 3 To Notre Dame, Falls Short Of College World Series

/in , /by

Photo: Courtesy of Tennessee Athletics/Andrew Ferguson

After being the best team in college baseball all season, No. 1 Tennessee fell to Notre Dame 7-3 in Game 3 of the Knoxville Super Regionals, ending its historic season.

The Fighting Irish scored three runs in both the seventh and eighth innings to turn a 3-1 Volunteer lead into a 7-3 Notre Dame lead. The Vols weren’t able to recover in the eighth and ninth innings.

“Overall, I thought our guys had good vibes all weekend long for a majority of the time. And we played a really good opponent,” said head coach Tony Vitello in a postgame press conference. “You kind of knew that today was going to come down to the ninth.”

Tennessee started off very well, taking a 2-1 lead into the third inning. Luc Lipcius kicked things off with a solo home run in the first and Seth Stephenson drove in a run in the second inning.

Starting pitcher Chase Burns was near perfect through the first six innings before running into trouble in the seventh. The true freshman allowed just one run on two hits entering the seventh and was one out away from escaping before giving up back-to-back homers to David LaManna and Jack Brannigan.

Freshman left-hander Jack Findlay was the star for Notre Dame, throwing five shutout innings in relief to pick up the win. Findlay gave up just one hit and allowed two walks while striking out four batters.

Notre Dame is headed to Omaha and will face Texas in the first round of the College Baseball World Series.

Steven Boero
Latest posts by Steven Boero (see all)