In five scoreless innings pitched by Drew Beam, Tennessee defeated North Carolina 6-1 on Sunday night to seize control of its bracket in the Men’s College World Series. Kavares Tears and Reese Chapman both hit home runs.
If the Volunteers (57-12) defeat Florida State (48-16) or North Carolina (48-15) on Wednesday, they will move on to the best-of-three finals where they will attempt to become the first No. 1 national seed to win the championship since 1999.
The two teams will play an elimination game on Tuesday.
The streets of downtown Omaha will be crowded with orange-clad supporters for the majority of the upcoming week as the Vols, who are 2-0 in an MCWS for the first time, would need to lose twice to be denied their first participation in the finals. In Omaha, they are the sixth-ranked national seed to start 2-0.
“Just happy we put ourselves in this spot,” Beam stated. “It’s been awesome seeing the amount of fans who have shown up from Knoxville, all over the country, wearing the orange. This is a pretty special place to us, and so it’s awesome the fans get to come enjoy it and watch us play our game.”
After allowing just three baserunners to reach base in the first five innings, Beam (9-2) left the game with a 4-0 lead for his team.
Shea Sprague (3-2), the starter for the Tar Heels, retired nine of the ten batters he faced before allowing a single and a walk in the fourth. Subsequently, Tears launched an elevated changeup off the right-field bullpen’s back wall, adjacent to the North Carolina logo, making history as the second Division I team to do it and the fourth Vols player with 20 home runs this season.
Chapman, who had hit just one of his previous fifteen times when he took the bat, hit his seventh to begin the bottom of the fifth and drive Sprague away.
In the sixth inning, Vance Honeycutt struck gold against Beam with his 27th home run of the year. Casey Cook and Parks Harber then doubled to load the bases for Kirby Connell.
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After keeping the Tar Heels scoreless for two innings, Connell—the guy with the handlebar mustache—turned the game over to Nate Snead to begin the eighth.
“Fortunate to win,” Vols coach Tony Vitello stated, “because every team in that league [ACC] is good, but North Carolina has had as much success as anybody in it, and they’ve kind of been a force of nature and still are capable of being that.”
With just one run against Tennessee, the Tar Heels’ total for the last three games is just six, the fewest since a 2-1 loss to South Carolina on April 9.
Although his team needs to win three games in a row over the course of three days in order to advance to the finals, North Carolina coach Scott Forbes stated he is not concerned about running out of pitchers.
“We lost,” he stated, “but we ain’t done. We’ll bounce back and be ready to roll on Tuesday.”
Both sides made excellent defensive plays to start their first meeting since 2019.
Carolina shortstop To get Moore, Colby Wilkerson threw to first base from his knees. Hunter Ensley of Tennessee launched himself into a full sprint, reaching out with his left arm to catch Anthony Donofrio’s deep fly to center field before he smashed into the wall and smudged his eye black on the padding.
Despite not showing any symptoms of an injury right away and batting twice, Colby Backus took his spot in center field at the beginning of the fifth inning. Ensley was removed out of caution.
“He hit that wall hard, so I wanted to make sure he was OK,” Beam stated. “I was just dumbfounded. It was a crazy catch.”
Scott Cline, who had been covering second base, took over as home plate umpire in the fifth inning in lieu of Kellen Levy. Levy started feeling sick after being struck in the face mask by a foul ball in the previous inning.
According to an NCAA spokeswoman, Levy was under observation for signs of a concussion. While Cline was changing into protective gear in the umpires’ locker room, the game was delayed by sixteen minutes.
(This story included material from The Associated Press.)
