Our third ranked and 4th nationally seeded Vanderbilt Commodores baseball team squares off with the North Carolina State Wolfpack tonight in our game 2 of the College World Series at TD Ameritrade Ballpark in Omaha. Game time is set for 6 PM CT and will be televised by ESPN.

Our team moved to 46-15 on the season with a phenomenal 7-6, 12 inning victory over No. 6 and 5th national seed Arizona Saturday Night. Carter Young launched a major 2 run homer to tie the game up 3-3 in the bottom of the 4th, and the hero of the game, senior third baseman Jayson Gonzalez, was 3 for 5 with his 8th home run of the season and 3 Ribeyes including the walk off bases loaded single in the bottom of the 12th. Carter hit his 16th homer on the season. North Carolina State defeated Stanford, 10-4, in the first game Saturday, with left fielder Jonny Butler going 3 for 4 with 5 RBIs, including his 14th homer of the season. Devonte Brown also hit a solo shot, his 13th.

Sophomore right hander Jack Leiter will get the start for us tonight. Jack is superb at 10-3 with a 2.16 ERA along with 41 walks and 156 strikeouts. Kumar pitched 5.2 on Saturday, giving up 5 hits, 5 runs, only 3 of which were earned, with 0 walks and 7 K’s. It was a solid performance. We struggled a little bit defensively with 3 errors. Need to rectify that tonight. Kumar now has 162 strikeouts on the season and is tied with Virginia’s Andrew Abbott for the nation’s lead. Jack will have the opportunity to overtake Rocker and Abbott tonight. Abbott pitched well in Virginia’s 6-0 victory over Tennessee Sunday.

Our bullpen was exceptional Saturday Night. Nick Maldonado looked like the pitcher we always have known he is. Nick was in his dominant midseason form in the CWS going 2.2 innings, giving up 2 hits, 1 earned run, with 0 walks and 4 K’s. Luke Murphy was stellar as well, going 2.2 himself, with 1 hit, 0 runs, with a walk and 6 K’s. And Chris McElvain finished off the superb bullpen effort going an inning giving up 1 hit with 0 walks and 2 K’s. McElvain moved to 5-1 on the season with a 3.92 ERA. Kumar now has a 2.58 ERA, Nick is at 2.42 and Luke is 2.75. Nick threw 48 pitches and Luke 47. Chris threw 13, so he should be available tonight, while the other two most likely aren’t. We still have some guys in the ‘pen. Ethan Smith is back and healthy, Thomas Schultz is a guy we can use. Nelson Berkwich has given us some good innings. Hugh Fisher is another. Both Berkwich and Hugh are leftys. If we need to use Patrick Reilly, he’ll be available. Patrick was warming up in the bullpen late Saturday Night.

Jack will be opposed tonight by Wolfpack sophomore right hander Sam Highfill, who is 8-2 with a 3.98 ERA, which includes 24 walks against 77 K’s. In 11 2/3 innings of postseason work, Highfill has given up only 3 runs. State used their star reliever, lefty Evan Justice for 46 pitches as he picked up his 12th save, so it’s highly questionable whether he will pitch. Unlikely really.

The Wolfpack are led in hitting by Butler, who hits .385 with 14 homers and 53 RBIs. Center fielder Tyler McDonough hits .341 with 15 homes and 45 RBIs. And first baseman Austin Murr hits .326 with 7 homers and 32 RBIs. Catcher Luca Tresh is hitting only .239 but has 15 homers and 43 RBIs on the year. Right fielder Devonte Brown hits .253 with 13 homers and 40 RBIs.They like the long ball as they’ve hit 91 this year. We’re right with them at 88. They have 102 doubles on the season, we have 128. They have 14 triples, we have 20. And they’ve stolen 74 bases in 90 attempts, while we are 87-of-99. Our leader is Enrique Bradfield with 46 in 52 attempts. Would like to see Enrique steal tonight and test them. I think Javier Vaz can steal with his speed. He’s 2-of-2 this season. Isaiah Thomas is 12-of-12, so Isaiah needs to get on and be aggressive on the base paths. Carter Young is 9-of-10. So we need to get the running game going. Butler has stolen 16-of-17 and designated hitter Terrell Tatum is 16-of-18. So C.J. Rodriguez are star catcher, may be tested by the Wolfpack running game. Trust C.J. to have a handle on it. We’re hitting .297 as a team and they’re hitting .289.

We are fielding at a .975 clip and they’re at .982. Didn’t see catcher Tresh get tested by Stanford on the base paths Saturday, and that’s something we ought to do. Enrique is so smart about his base stealing, but hope we’re more aggressive tonight. Javy did steal a base Saturday Night. He’s such a stellar addition to our lineup. Love our outfield with Javy, Bradfield and Thomas left to right. That’s as good as it gets.

Their team ERA is 5.08 and ours’ is 3.36.

So another tremendously important contest in the CWS for us. If we can pull this off, we’d advance all the way to Friday’s 1 PM CT game on ESPN2, which, if we win that one, would qualify us for the national championship best 2 out of 3 game series starting a week from tonight, Monday, June 28th. But a lot of work ahead of us tonight. We’ve got a stellar opponent that defeated Arkansas in the Super Regional and Arkansas’ magnificent pitcher Kevin Kopps, who, on his 118th pitch, had it deposited over the left central field wall. Justice was awesome in closing the door for the Wolfpack in their 3-2 victory in Fayetteville that sent them to Omaha.

We’ve got a sensational team and a hoss on the hill tonight and our bullpen is still in good shape even without Nick and Luke tonight. Let’s get the job done and move on to Friday.