Our Vanderbilt Baseball team captured another series this past weekend, taking two out of three from the potent bats of the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Our 4th ranked Dores (D1 Baseball.com rankings) lost Friday 14-6, but won Saturday’s game, 8-5, thanks to some stellar relief pitching. We also won Sunday’s game 6-4 thanks to some more nice pitching, timely hitting and outstanding defense.
We are now 29-7 overall and 13-2 in the SEC. We are first in the East. Florida is next at 11-4. SC, which is 10-4, is third. Kentucky is 10-5. UT, which we play this weekend, is, surprisingly, 5-10 in the conference. Missouri is 5-10 and Georgia is 4-11.
In the West, Arkansas is 11-4. LSU is 9-5. A&M is 7-8. Alabama is 6-9. Miss State and Auburn are 5-10. And Ole Miss, again very surprisingly for the defending national champions, is 3-12.
LSU is still ranked No.1 in the country by D1. They are 29-6 overall. Wake is 31-5 and ranked second. Florida is 30-7 and ranked third. Then us. Arkansas is No.5 at 29-7. South Carolina is No.6 at 30-6. And Kentucky, at 28-7, is No.13.
Excellent relief pitching on Saturday by Greyson Carter and Patrick Reilly. Reilly was awesome going 4, giving up 1 hit with 2 walks and 6 K’s with high 90’s heat and a good mix of sliders and changeups as well. Maldo finished off the final two innings. Reilly earned the victory. Carter Holton started, and looked rusty, but should be fine coming up this weekend I’m guessing.
On Sunday, the great Devin Futrell went 5.1, gave up 4 hits, 2 runs, with 3 walks and 7 K’s. Ryan Ginther came in and pitched the last 3.2, giving up 2 hits, 2 runs with 0 walks and 2 K’s. Against that home run hitting machine, that is good pitching. The defense was stellar on Saturday and Sunday as well. RJ Schreck made a circus catch reaching over the wall in four territory in right field and falling into the bullpen, and, amazingly, holding on to the ball. It was spectacular.
Enrique Bradfield Jr. hit his 5th homer of the season, a big hit on Sunday, to right central. On Saturday, Schreck and Jack Bulger homered. Schreck with his 9th, and Bulger with his 4th. RJ’s was long and Jack’s was a rocket. Both over 400 feet.
Enrique was involved in one of the most unusual plays I’ve ever seen in college or professional baseball. With the bases loaded, our great freshman second baseman RJ Austin hit a deep shot to left central. The ball looked like it was going over the wall. The SC center fielder jumped up and appeared to knock the ball up in the air and catch it on his way down to the turf. Enrique tagged up and scored and guys were trying to move up. Then, there was massive confusion amongst the umpiring crew whether it was a SAC fly and the CF caught it, or it was a hit off the wall. The umpires at first called it a catch and ruled that Bradfield Jr. had left third base too early and called him out for an inning ending double play. They then looked at it again and called it a single off the wall, which it was, more like a double, with Bradfield Jr’s run counting. But Schreck was forced out at third. Austin, who thought it was caught and trotted off the field, was forced out at first and that was an inning ending double play. But EBJ’s run counted to put us up, 5-4. Just a cluster. Could have cost us a much bigger inning, but it was tough to tell. The umpires did their best sorting it out. Fortunately, we were still victorious.
It was a huge series victory over a terrific Carolina team. The guys deserve a lot of credit for hanging tough after a difficult 14-6 loss Friday Night. Loved our pitching and defense on Saturday and Sunday.
Today, we face Indiana State, which is 22-12 and 11-1 in the Missouri Valley Conference. The Sycamores are coming off a sweep of Belmont over the weekend. Corbs calls them a “regional team.” They’ll be a challenge today at 6 PM CT at the Hawk. SEC Network+ will broadcast.
Then, Tennessee over the weekend in Knoxville. The game Friday is at 5 PM CT on the SEC Network. Saturday, it’s an 11 AM CT first pitch on ESPN2. And Sunday’s game commences at 12 PM CT and ESPN2 will broadcast the finale as well. So, it’s a big week for the team.
Men’s Golf
Our No.1 ranked Vanderbilt Men’s Golf Team embarks on the postseason Wednesday as we aim to be successful at the SEC Championships at the SEC Island Golf Club, the Seaside Course, in St. Simon’s Island, GA.
Our team has put together a massively successful season winning 6 tournaments versus top notch fields. We are ranked No.1 by both the Golfstat and Golfweek rankings. We are the two-time defending champion at the SEC Championships.
Coach Limbaugh and Assistant Coach Gator Todd will send out Cole Sherwood, William Moll, Matthew Riedel, fifth year senior Reid Davenport and stellar sophomore Gordon Sargent, who is the No.1 ranked Amateur golfer in the world right now. More on GS in a second. Sophomore Jackson Van Paris will serve as a potential substitute if needed. ‘
Sherwood, Davenport, Moll and Riedel were all part of the 2021 SEC Championship team, while Moll, Davenport, Sherwood and Sargent were on the ‘’22 squad the won the conference championship.
All 14 SEC programs will compete the first 3 days, Wednesday-Friday, in stroke play competition. The top eight teams after stroke play will compete in match play, with the quarterfinals Saturday morning, the semifinals Saturday afternoon, and the Championship match on Sunday. The SEC Network will televise Sunday’s Championship Match beginning at 6:30 AM CT and running till 12 PM CT. Live scoring can be found on Golfstat.com.
Coach Limbaugh, as his usual superb motivating coaching attests to, says we need to lock in, play with a purpose and have fun playing golf. He and Coach Todd, as always, will have the guys ready.
Gordon
Gordon Sargent was named as one of the 10 semifinalists for the Ben Hogan Award presented by PNC Bank.
Gordon is the defending individual NCAA national champion and career victories leader at Vanderbilt.
There are 9 other contenders.
The Hogan Award annually awards the top men’s Division I, II, III, NAIA and NJCAA college golfer based on all collegiate, amateur and professional events over the past 12 months.
It’s one of the premier awards in college golf along with the Jack Nicklaus and Fred Haskins Awards.
On Friday, May 4th, the 10 semifinalists will be paired down to three finalists. The three finalists will attend a black tie dinner on Monday, May 22nd at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth where the winner will be announced. GS has an excellent shot.
Thanks to Will Owens of Vandy Baseball Communications and Chad Bishop, the do everything sports information contact at Vanderbilt, for providing some of this information.
Bowling wins it all once again
I don’t follow bowling and haven’t rolled a game in quite a long time, but very much appreciate our Vanderbilt Bowling team for winning another National Championship. That is awesome.
For Coach John Williamson, it was his third national championship at Vanderbilt, along with championships in 2007 and 2018.
Our team, led by our great senior Mabel Cummins, was superb in coming back from a 3-1 deficit in games, to capture the National Championship. The other members of the team are Freshman Victoria Varano, sophomore Kailee Channell, junior Caroline Thesier, sophomore Paige Peters, sophomore Kaylee Hitt, freshman Alyssa Ballard, senior Amelia Keifer, junior Amanda Naujokas, and junior Jennifer Loredo.
What an effort by a remarkable group of young women. Coach Williamson and the team deserve so much credit.
It’s hard to win a national championship in any sport, so for this team to do it and for Vanderbilt Bowling to do it three times in 16 years, is a testament to the stellar job Coach Williamson is doing and the extraordinary work by our young women. Fantastic job, ladies. The Vanderbilt Nation is proud of you.