Jeren Kendall (above, photo courtesy of Peter Aiken, Getty Images) and Will Toffey (below, photo courtesy of Baseball America) with tremendous nights at the plate
The Vanderbilt baseball team pounded out 13 hits, including a 4 for 5, 3 RBI night from Will Toffey, and a 3 for 5, 5 RBI night from Jeren Kendall, and Kyle Wright was stellar on the hill, as the Commodores blasted Alabama once again, this time 13-1 before 3,110 at Hawkins Field.
Will raised his average to .337 with a double and 3 singles, knocked in 3 and scored 4. He’s definitely a centerpiece of this baseball team. Will plays tremendous defense at third base for us also. What a player, what a leader. And Jeren is just Jeren. Best centerfielder, if not position player in college baseball. Jeren hit a single, a triple, his 5th of the season which leads the SEC, and his 15th homer, a rocket over the 375 sign in right central field. We scored 13 runs on 13 hits with no errors once again. We’ve been flawless in the field the past 3 weeks. We’re playing spectacular defense.
And Kyle was Kyle, which is always spectacular. Kyle went 7.1 innings, gave up just 5 hits, 1 earned run, with 1 walk and 11 K’s. Wow, Kyle is something else. Collin Snider came in to finish it off with 1.2 innings of work, 1 hit, 0 runs, 1 walk and 1 K. Kyle was hitting 95 and sometimes 96, his curve ball was superb, and he had an 86-88 MPH slider that was really moving. His change up was a weapon also. Kyle is on another level in college baseball right now. A mock MLB draft, and I’m not sure which service it was unfortunately, has Kyle going No.1 and Jeren going No. 10 in the MLB draft. The way Jeren is playing, he could very well move up. Kyle moved to 4-5 on the season and now has a 2.91 ERA, with 27 walks and 104 K’s. Superb stuff by our junior from New Market, Alabama. Superb stuff from Jeren, our junior from Holmen, Wisconsin, and Wil, our junior from Barnstable, Mass., as well.
We moved to 15-13 in the SEC and 33-21 overall, and are still in 8th in the conference standings. We are 1 game back of Auburn and A&M, which are both at 16-13. If we finish 8th, we’d play the 9th place team at approximately 4:30 PM CT/5:30 PM ET on the SEC Networ Tuesday. Right now, Ole Miss is 9th. We’ll get closure on the standings after today and know what we’re doing for Tuesday, tonight.
Freshman right hander Drake Fellows (3-2, 3.44) will take the mound for us today against Alabama right hander Garrett Suchey ( 2-7, 3.24).
Women’s Tennis advances to Elite Eight with tremendous victory
Sydney Campbell was super clutch yesterday versus No. 13 Cal (Photo Courtesy of the Tennessean
The only way to describe our No.3 ranked tennis team is clutch. Not just clutch, super clutch. That’s who they are. They are the most superb competitors you can find.
The women defeated No.13 Cal-Berkeley yesterday, 4-1, to advance to the Elite Eight tomorrow (Sunday) in Athens, GA. where they will face No. 12 Pepperdine, a 4-3 victor over No.5 Georgia yesterday in what could be considered an upset. But as Coach Geoff McDonald said, with the competition in this NCAA Championship, anyone can beat anyone. The teams are all that good. We will play Pepperdine, the 12th seed, at 3 PM CT/4 PM ET tomorrow. The match will be streamed live on www.vucommodores.com We are the No.4 seed in the tournament. Georgia was the No.5 seed and Cal was No. 13 seed.
In the other Elite Eight matches, 9th seeded Ok. State plays No.1 Florida. The winner of that match will play the winner of our match with Pepperdine. Florida and OK. State play at 3 PM CT/4 PM ET as well tomorrow. There are 2 sets of courts at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens. On the other side, No.3 seed Ohio State plays No.6 Texas Tech at 11 AM CT/Noon ET, and No. 2 North Carolina plays No.7 Stanford at 11 AM/Noon ET.
A superb victory by the team yesterday. Senior Sydney Campbell was stellar, teaming up with freshman Emma Kurtz to clinch the doubles point, 7-5, and Syd also was victorious in her singles match, 6-4, 6-1 over No. 10 ranked Karla Popovic of Cal. Syd is No. 15. Wow, that’s spectacular by Sydney. Fernanda Contreras and Christina Rosca won their doubles match, 6-3. Astra and Emily Smith lost theirs, but battled hard.
In singles, Sydney got the victory at No.2, Christina Rosca got the match clinching victory at No.3, 7-5, 6-1, Fernanda was huge getting the victory at No.6, 6-3,6-2, and those 3 stellar women were tremendous for us. Such clutch playing by the team. Astra was 4-6, 6-6 when the match was clinched by Christina. Emma Kurtz was leading at No.4 6-4, 4-3, and Georgina was defeated in her match 4-6, 3-6, but an overall superb job by this amazing group of young women.
Excited for the women to get back out there tomorrow. If you get a chance, please check out these remarkable young ladies. They’re special. Tough match tomorrow, they’re all tough at this point. Just gotta be our consistent selves and be totally locked in, which I know the team will be. They always are.
3 PM CT/4 PM ET vs No. 12 and 12th seeded Pepperdine.