By Sean Ryan
CollegeBaseballInsider.com Co-Founder
OMAHA, Neb. – Throughout the Championship Series of the College World Series, the threat of Tennessee’s potent bats was palpable. At any moment, Mount Saint Rocky Top could erupt.
It showed signs in Game 1 on Saturday, when Dylan Dreiling ripped a two-run homer and Hunter Ensley added a homer in the seventh inning as the Volunteers made things interesting in a 9-5 loss to Texas A&M.
But spanning eight innings – the final two of Game 1 and the first six innings of Game 2 – Tennessee’s magma stagnated, seemingly ready to explode at any given moment by stymied by a talented Texas A&M pitching staff.
The trigger?
Two-out thunder, which led Tennessee to a comeback win in Game 2 and a hold-on-for-dear-life thriller in Game 3 to secure its first national championship on the diamond.
Trailing 1-0 in the seventh inning Saturday, Dreiling, the College World Series’ most outstanding player, ripped a two-out, two-run missile into the seats in right field to give the Vols a lead – and life – in the best-of-three SEC showdown.
One inning later – again with two outs – Cal Stark hit a two-strike, hanging slider, for a two-run homer to left, his first hit in Omaha.
Rocky Top, after a 4-1 win, was ready to explode.
Christian Moore led off Game 3 with a homer, again perpetuating the feeling that the Volunteers were ready to explode. The Aggies, true to form throughout their stay in college baseball’s mecca, kept making pitches.
But Tennessee triumphed because it thrived with two outs.
Dean Curley delivered a two-out single to left to make it 3-1 in the bottom of the third inning Monday night.
Still smoldering at 3-1 until the seventh, three-hole hitter Billy Amick, 1 for 11 at the time in the Championship Series, hit a seemingly innocent single to left with two outs.
Up stepped Dreiling, a sophomore from Hays, Kansas, a town of a few thousand people fewer than were in Charles Schwab Field. Dreiling did it again, hitting a towering fly that whispered the top of the fence and a leaping Caden Sorrell in right field.
Kavares Tears nearly hit a two-out homer of his own, but it bounced off the wall in left-center, and Ensley raced around from first, only scoring when he made a Tee Martin (sorry Peyton) cut off his right foot to the left to avoid Aggies catcher Jackson Appel and dive for the goal line, rather home plate, to make it 6-1.
Mount Saint Rocky Top had erupted, thanks to eight runs – out of 10 – with two outs over two days to capture a national championship.
* * *
Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle is regarded as one of college baseball’s top coaches.
His start in coaching, in earnest, came when he was a pitcher at Elon University.
“Jim stuck out like a sore thumb and was very in tune as a player,” said Mike Kennedy, the longtime coach of Elon and a teammate of Schlossnagle’s. “Jim would see things most kids wouldn’t see.”
Kennedy and Schlossnagle were coached by Rick Jones, whom Kennedy praised as being a coach who was very detail oriented and communicated well with his players. Schlossnagle battled injuries as a pitcher, and Jones “had taken him under his wing as a student coach, so to speak,” according to Kennedy.
Kennedy recalled one game when he was about to hit and Schlossnagle told him his barrel was getting too far away from his head. “Try to take the pitcher’s cap off,” the oft-injured pitcher and future coach told a tremendous catcher and team leader.
“He would tell you small stuff as a player,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy and Schlossnagle would go to other Elon sporting events together. Schlossnagle would recommend a timeout was necessary at a basketball game that drew several hundred fans. He’d see things, or as Kennedy put it, “He was always in tune.”
In the winter, Schlossnagle and Kennedy would frequent the gym, where other students, like Keith Parsons, were playing pickup basketball. When the games ended around 9 or 10 at night, the future coaches were still there. According to Parsons, it was easy to see their passion.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” Kennedy said of Schlossnagle’s success. “He just took the ball and ran with it and became one of the best, if not the best, there is.”
Schlossnagle isn’t the only one with Elon connections to have tremendous success.
While his Aggies fell short in the national championship series against Tennessee, he’s taken Texas A&M and TCU to Omaha. Jones, his coach and one of his mentors, took Tulane to two College World Series appearances. Hall of Fame coach Jim Morris, who amassed nearly 1,600 wins and took 12 teams to Omaha – including two that won national titles – is a 1973 graduate of Elon. And Kennedy has won more than 850 games over 28 years guiding the Phoenix.
“It’s pretty impressive to be honest to you,” Kennedy said. “There’s been some really high-level teams coached by guys from Elon.”