Tennessee baseball is one win away from advancing to the super regionals for the third straight year after outlasting Clemson 6-5 in a 14 inning thriller Saturday night at Doug Kingmore Stadium.
The win means Tennessee needs to take just one of its next two games (first on Sunday night and then on Monday afternoon if needed) to win a regional for the third time in the Tony Vitello era.
After going on the road the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, Tennessee is eying what was once an unlikely return to Knoxville for super regionals.
With Clemson as the No. 4 overall seed, the winner of the Clemson Regional will face the winner of the Auburn Regional. But Auburn (No. 13 overall seed) won’t be the winner of the Auburn Regional after Southern Miss eliminated them Saturday afternoon.
Four-seed Penn sits in the cat bird seat after defeating Southern Miss and Samford while the Golden Eagles and Bulldogs are still alive but fighting an uphill battle.
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So if both regional host teams lose, who hosts the super regional?
“The committee will make a determination of that when the situation comes up and the site would be announced Tuesday morning,” NCAA Media representative Jeff Williams said in a statement. “Since there is no true seeding of #2s, it would largely just be looking at the merits of the two bids (venue, hotels, guarantees, etc.) but it would be a full committee decision.”
Those parameters bode well for Tennessee. Knoxville has plenty of hotel rooms and while Lindsey Nelson Stadium isn’t the nicest venue, it’s hosted NCAA Tournaments in recent years with no issues.
Could Southern Miss, Samford or Penn match that criteria? Southern Miss’ Pete Taylor Field seats 3,265 fans and Hattiesburg isn’t short on hotels so the Golden Eagles could potentially win a host bid as well.
Samford and Penn don’t appear well equipped to host a super regional.
Tennessee has to finish the job on the field with one more win at Clemson but the Vols are in a prime spot to advance to the super regionals. They might even host as postseason baseball has a clear path to return to Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
2 Responses
When and where is the TN baseball game today?
Take it to Rocky Too! They need to get Lindsay Nelson Field a update! Tony deserves a better venue! Knoxville has the best city for fans! Go Big Orange!!!!