Vanderbilt Commodores

No. 15 Vanderbilt Opens First Weekend Series with 11-4 Win

The Commodores recorded 12 hits and recorded no errors in Friday afternoon's win against Saint Mary's College.

Taylor Hodges

Vanderbilt's offense got off to a slow start against Saint Mary's, but quickly came to life on the way to an 11-4 win on Friday in Nashville, Tenn.
Vanderbilt's offense got off to a slow start against Saint Mary's, but quickly came to life on the way to an 11-4 win on Friday in Nashville, Tenn. / Vanderbilt Commodores Athletics

Baseball history is full of instances when a coach or manager chooses to leave a pitcher in a game and something disastrous happens a couple pitches later. Fortunately for No. 15 Vanderbilt (and unfortunately for Saint Mary’s), the Commodores were on the positive end of the latest instance.

Trailing 7-3 in the bottom of the sixth inning, the Gaels had already brought in their third pitcher, Lukas Sarant, who gave up a single and a walk against the first three batters he faced. A Saint Mary’s coach made a mound visit to Sarant before the Commodores’ No. 9 hitter came to bat.

Here's how that turned out:

Sarant stayed in the game and a couple five pitches after the mound visit, gave up a three-run home run Jonathan Vastine that put Vanderbilt up 10-3. Vanderbilt’s next batter, RJ Austin, forced Sarant out of the game when he hit a triple off the center field wall. Sarant was then relieved by Jaden McNeel who was able to end inning without any more runs allowed.

Vanderbilt (5-1) ended up scoring another run in the seventh inning on its way to an 11-4 win against Saint Mary’s (4-2).

The Commodores were held hitless in the first inning by Saint Mary’s pitcher Derik Eaquin and the Gaels’ batters earned a pair of runs off of JD Thompson in the top of the second inning to take a 2-0 lead. But the Commodores quickly corrected that deficit.

Vanderbilt scored three runs in the bottom half of the second on a RBI single from Rustan Rigdon and an two-run single by Riley Nelson that gave Vanderbilt it wouldn’t lose the rest of the game.

Thompson picked up his second win of the season, pitching four innings and allowing three earned runs on seven hits, two walks and five strikeouts. Sawyer Hawks came in from the bullpen in the fifth inning and didn’t allow any runs in three innings of work while striking out five batters and giving up one walk.

Next Up

The Commodores and Gaels will meet for Game 2 of the three-game weekend series at 1 p.m. Left-hander Ethan McElvain will get the start on the mound for Vanderbilt. The game will be streamed on SEC Network+.

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Taylor Hodges
TAYLOR HODGES

Taylor Hodges is a staff writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI covering all-things Vanderbilt. Taylor brings more than a decade’s worth of award-winning sports writing, photography and video experience covering every level of sports — from Little League baseball to professional sports and other sports like hunting and fishing. Taylor is fueled by his lifelong passion for sports that began the same day Kirk Gibson hit his legendary World Series walk-off home run, Arkansas beat Texas in Austin and No. 4 Notre Dame beat No. 1 Miami in the Catholics vs. Convicts game.

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