Notre Dame Upsets Tennessee To Advance To The College World Series

Notre Dame upset #1 Tennessee by a 7-3 score to claim a 2-1 series victory, advancing to the College World Series

The wait is over. After a 20-year absence from college baseball’s marquee event, Notre Dame is headed back to the College World Series after a 7-3 win over No. 1 ranked Tennessee. The Irish won games one and three of the Super Regional series in Knoxville, Tenn. to advance to Omaha for the first time since 2002.

The Fighting Irish trailed for most of the day after Tennessee jumped on the scoreboard in the first inning with a solo home run by Luc Lipcius. The Volunteers added single runs in the second and fifth innings after RBIs by leadoff man Seth Stephenson.

Tennesse righthander Chase Burns kept the Irish offense at bay for most of the day, but catcher David LaManna sent an 0-1 pitch over the short right field wall with a runner aboard in the bottom of the 7th inning to tie the game at 3-3. It was just the catcher’s second home run of the season.

The next batter, third baseman Jack Brannigan, followed with his 12th long ball of the season to give the Fighting Irish their first lead since Friday night’s game one victory.

First baseman Carter Putz extended the lead to 6-3 with a two-out opposite field double to rightfield in the top of the eighth inning off left-handed reliever Kirby Connell. Designated hitter Jack Zyska then poked another run home with a two-out single to make it 7-3.

Burns allowed four Irish runs in 6.2 innings to lose for just the second time this season.

Notre Dame needed three pitchers to take down the nation’s No. 1 overall seed. Starter Liam Simon walked three and allowed two earned runs in just 1.2 innings. Alex Rao followed with 2.1 innings, allowing just a run.

Freshman All-American Jack Findlay held the Vols at bay in his second appearance of the weekend. The lefty changed speeds and worked the corners of the plate to strikeout five and allowed no runs in 5.0 innings for his sixth win of the season.

Notre Dame’s last two College World Series teams have both gone on the road to win two of three games from the nation’s No. 1 team to win Super Regionals. The 2002 team took two of three games against Florida State in Tallahassee the last time a Fighting Irish team advanced to Omaha.

Déjà vu

There were plenty of parallels between this year’s Irish CWS team and the last one that advanced to the CWS in 2002:

- Both were No. 2 seeds in their NCAA Regionals.

- Both were sent to the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament field for Super Regionals

- Both had a two-run home run by their No. 3 batters in the first inning of the first game of the series. Brian Stavisky did it in 2002 and Carter Putz did it Friday night for this year’s squad.

- Both teams also won the first game of the series, then saw the opposition use an eight-run inning en route to a game two loss and then both won decisive game threes to clinch the series wins.

- A freshman pitcher also figured prominently in the deciding game three for both teams. Righthander Chris Niesel won with an eight inning start in 2002, while Findlay was dominant in 5.0 innings of scorless relief Sunday afternoon. 

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