2024 College Baseball World Series Recap: Texas A&M VS Tennessee Game 2

 Written by; Danny Albers 

The Tennessee Volunteers (56-13) evened up the 3-game series with Texas A&M Aggies (52-13) beating their fellow SEC opponents 4-1 and setting up a pivotal rubber match on Monday. If offense was the theme on Saturday’s game, Sunday’s game brought out some stellar pitching performances from both teams. Tennessee pitcher Drew Beam started the game for Tennessee going 4 innings and giving up only 1 earned run. He struck out 7 batters in that time. Tennessee followed up Beam with Aaron Combs who went 4 scoreless innings, striking out 5 on his way to guiding Tennessee to a 4-1 ninth inning lead. But Texas A&M jumped on Tennessee with another first inning homer run, this time off the bat of outfielder Jace Laviolette. A&M struggled to pull away from Tennessee this time. A&M would turn to Chris Cortez in the second inning, one of the top pitching prospects in college baseball. He went 4.1 scoreless, striking out 7. A&M would make the tough decision to pull Cortez in the 7th and turn to Kaiden Wilson. He’d walk Tennessee star second baseman Christian Moore to start the inning, but would retire the next two batters. But Tennessee left fielder Dylan Dreiling would come up in a big spot once again for Tennessee, launching a 2-run homer to right field and to give Tennessee their first lead of the series. With momentum turned in the Volunteers favor, they would look to pull away in the 8th inning. An unlikely hero in catcher Cal Stark would connect on a pitch to left field, providing Tennessee with their second 2-run homer of the game and giving Tennessee a 4-1 lead. In the ninth inning, Texas A&M didn’t go away easily. A&M would get runners at first and third with only one out. Kaeden Kent would come up to the plate, but would fly out. The runner would be held at third. Down to their final out, Texas A&M would call on Ryan Targac to pinch hit. Targac, with two strikes, would launch a ball out to right field, looking like it had a chance, but died out on the warning track, cementing a 4-1 Tennessee win. This loss was a gut punch for A&M as they had Tennessee on the ropes. Now short handed and forced to play a game 3, Tennessee’s offense looked like it finally started to come alive in the later innings in game 2. I’d assume A&M made the decision to pull Chris Cortez after 4 innings to have him available to go in game 3 since they were only up 1-0. We could see the star pitcher kick off the game for Texas A&M on Monday.