2024 College Baseball World Series Recap: Texas A&M VS Tennessee Game 1

 Written by: Danny Albers 

Tennessee beat Texas A&M in the SEC tournament back in May, and the Aggies clearly haven’t forgotten about that. The Texas A&M Aggies (51-13) beat the Tennessee Volunteers (56-12) in game 1 of the 2024 College Baseball World Series. The first batter of the game was A&M’s third baseman Gavin Grahovac who blasted a lead-off homer off Tennessee pitcher Chris Stamos. After Texas A&M Jackson Appel doubled, Stamos would be taken out of the game. Tennessee would replace Stamos with AJ Causey. Causey would strike out Aggie first baseman Ted Burton before giving up an RBI single to A&M left field Caden Sorrell. After just 1 half inning, Texas A&M led 2-0. 

A&M’s starting pitcher Ryan Prager took his 2.95 ERA to the mound for the Aggie, and got the job done. He went 4 innings against a good Tennessee lineup, giving up only 2 earned runs in the process. Tennessee would hit 3 singles off Prager in the bottom of the second, the final one by Tennessee shortstop Dean Curley driving in a run to cut the lead to 2-1.  

But the next half inning, the Aggies offense would explode. A&M right fielder Jace Laviolette drew a lead off walk. Appel would follow that up with another single advancing Jace to second. The very next hitter for A&M, DH Hayden Schott would single up the middle past second base bringing Laviolette hom and sending Schott to second. After the Aggie would have a runner thrown out at home trying to score off a fielder’s choice, Sorrell would come up big yet again for A&M sending a single into left field and scoring Schott to give A&M a 4-1 lead. The next hitter was A&M shortstop Ali Camarillo who reached on a ball thrown away from Tennessee third baseman Billy Amick, scoring another run and putting the Aggies up 5-1. But the bleeding would not stop there for Tennessee. Kaeden Kent, son of MLB Hall of Famer Jeff Kent, singled to right center, scoring both Camarillo and Sorrell to give A&M a commanding 7-1 lead. 

Kaeden Kent was not done there for A&M. In the top of the 7th inning, up 7-2, Kent would hit a two run homer to right field, giving Texas A&M a 9-2 lead and killing whatever life was left in Tennessee. In the bottom of the inning, with a runner on first, Dylan Dreiling would homer for Tennessee. The next batter for Tennessee, DH Hunter Ensley, would launch a homer to left field to go back-to-back, and cut A&M’s lead to 9-5. With Tennessee making a bit of a comeback, A&M would call to pitcher Evan Aschenbeck, who’d strike out 7 Tennessee hitters in the final 3 innings of the game and locking in the 9-5 win for Texas A&M giving them a 1-0 series lead.

Texas A&M did a good job jumping on Tennessee in this game before the powerful bats of the Vols could get going. Although a lot of the attention was on Kaeden Kent with his dad in attendance, it should be mentioned Gavin Grahovic hit his 23rd home run of the season. Texas A&M have made it this far without star outfield Braden Montgomery, who some scouts named as the top player to watch in the College World Series. Texas A&M also didn’t need any involvement from star right handed pitcher Chris Cortez, who is set to pitch in game 2. If Tennessee is going to bounce back in game 2, star infielders Christian Moore (second base, .378 average on the year) and Billy Amick (third base, .307 average on the year) will have to make more of an impact.