Tennessee and Notre Dame will open up play for the Knoxville Super Regional at 6 p.m. ET Friday night on ESPN2. First pitch for game two of the NCAA Tournament series is set for 2 p.m. ET on Saturday. ESPN will broadcast the second game of the series. If necessary, game three will be on Sunday. The NCAA hasn’t announced the first pitch time or broadcast details for a potential game three.
Notre Dame — who was the highest rated two-seed in the NCAA Tournament — dominated the Statesboro Regional to advance to Knoxville. The Fighting Irish swept through the weekend, earning a pair of wins over Texas Tech and a win over the regional-host Georgia Southern.
Notre Dame ranks seventh in the country with a 3.82 team-ERA while ranking 87th nationally in runs scored.
The Fighting Irish fell to Mississippi State in the Starkville Super Regional a season ago. Notre Dame forced all three games before falling to the future national champions.
More From RTI: Tennessee Baseball Drops Regional Hype Video
Tennessee advanced to the Super Regionals after sweeping through the Knoxville Regional for the second consecutive season. The Vols blew out Alabama State in the weekend opener before using come-from-behind victories over Campbell and Georgia Tech.
Tennessee fell behind the Fighting Camels and Yellow Jackets, 4-0, on back-to-back days but overcame its second biggest deficit of the season with a pair of wins.
“I would say that they’ve responded in a lot of situations,” Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello said. “There’s just been a lot of things where our guys needed to gather themselves and respond, and I think they’ve done that consistently throughout the year. Just kind of comes off in more dramatic fashion when the last two days happen. All it does is build self-belief, now you’re in that situation again, you’d like to, as a coach, keep your composure a little bit more because you know what these guys are capable of.”
The winner of the three-game series will advance to the College World Series where they’ll face the winner of the East Carolina-Texas Super Regional series in game one.
One Response
I thoroughly enjoy UT Baseball. The entireTeam responds as needed. The Coach leads them in all aspects of the game. He stays abreast of what is going on throughout the game. Best BB I’ve experienced in many years.