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Championship Series Game 2 (Best of Three): Virginia 7, Vanderbilt 2
After Vanderbilt put 9 runs on Virginia on Monday night, the Cavs’ Brandon Waddle throws a complete game victory (Brad Williams/WBR)
Early on it looked like Tyler Beede and the Vanderbilt Commodores baseball team were poised to capture their school’s first national championship in baseball. A missed call on a stolen base attempt in the second inning led to the first run of the contest. Vanderbilt’s John Norwood reached base on a walked issued by Virginia starter Brandon Waddell. He took off for second and stole it successfully with Rhett Wiseman at the dish. However, Norwood’s hand was actually on Cavalier shortstop Daniel Pinero’s foot instead of the base when the tag was applied, but second base umpire Scott Erby didn’t see it that way.
Two batters later, designated hitter Chris Harvey lined a ball off Waddell and Norwood scooted him to give the Commodores a 1-0 lead when Waddell took the out at first.
As they did last night, Virginia fought back immediately after falling behind. Consecutive singles by center fielder Bradon Downes and catcher Robbie Coman put runners on the corners with one out. The next hitter up, lead off man Brandon Cogswell, laid down a beautiful squeeze bunt to the first base side and Vanderbilt starter Tyler Beede’s only play was to tag Cogswell as the tying run crossed the plate in the top of the third.
A throwing error by Virginia third baseman Kenny Towns proved costly in the bottom of the fourth. Vanderbilt’s Zander Wiel led off with a grounder to Towns who fielded and fired a ball over the head off first baseman Mike Papi. Wiel advanced to second on the play and came around to score four pitches later when Norwood crushed an RBI double to right center to put the Commodores back in front, 2-1.
The Cavaliers struck early and often in the top of the 6th. Papi and right fielder Joe McCarthy led off the inning with consecutive singles, and just as they did in the third inning, they cashed in on them in the next at-bat when Derek Fisher grounded to second and beat the throw to first to prevent the double play while Papi came home to tie the game. Towns singled after Fisher stole second and put runners on the corners for designated hitter John La Prise. Another RBI ground out to second put the Cavaliers ahead 3-2. They tacked on another one when Branden Downes tripled to center field to bring home Towns and take a two-run lead to the bottom of the sixth — 12 outs away from forcing a winner-take-all Game 3.
Towns wasn’t finished atoning for his costly throwing error in the fifth inning. After Virginia loaded the bases on Tyler Beede in the top of the seventh, Towns stepped to the plate with two outs and delivered a two-run single to right field to give the Cavaliers a 6-2 lead and some breathing room with nine outs left to get in order to keep their championship hopes alive.
“I thought throughout the game we were getting pretty good swings at [Beede]. Everyone was seeing the ball pretty well,” Towns said. “As the game was going on, he was starting to leave some pitches up, and he gave us opportunities in the sixth through the ninth inning to be able to execute some plays.”
La Prise tacked on another run with an RBI single up the middle in the 9th to make it 7-2, but the story of the game by that point was the pitching performance of Virginia’s sophomore Brandon Waddell. The left-hander from Houston, Tex., stifled the Vanderbilt offense, allowing just one earned and striking out five as he pitched his second complete game of the season at a time when the Cavaliers needed it most.
“You know, a little bit different of a starting pitching performance than last night,” Virginia head coach Brian O’Connor said. “Brandon Waddell was just terrific. It seemed like after the first four innings he really settled in, did a terrific job of mixing all of his pitches, kind of keeping their hitters off balance.”
Through two games, the Cavaliers have outhit the Commodores 28-11, while also holding a 15-11 edge in the only category that matters at the end of the day. The performance comes as no surprise to Brian O’Connor. Nor is complaining about the timing.
“Certainly there is a lot of athletic skill in our lineup,” O’Connor said of his team’s offensive production. “Just the ability of guys to get down the line and the pressure that puts on infielders through most of our lineup. We’ve got a really veteran lineup. I remember back a month and a half, two months ago Coach [Kevin] McMullan and I had a conversation, and we just believed that at some point this would all come together and we’d have a real complete lineup that we felt like we were capable of. Fortunately, it’s shown up here in Omaha, and fortunately, it’s shown up in the last two ball games.”
Virginia will be the designated home team for Wednesday’s winner-take-all Game 3 at 7:00 pm (CT). The projected starting pitchers are Carson Fulmer for Vanderbilt and Josh Sborz for Virginia, but neither head coach would fully commit those starters after the game.