OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — After beating Tennessee 9-5 in the College World Series finals opener Saturday night, Texas A&M faces its most difficult task of the season. The Aggies must knock off the high-powered No. 1 national seed one more time Sunday to claim their first national championship. The Aggies (53-13) put themselves in position with Gavin Grahovac homering to begin the game, breaking it open with a five-run third inning and bringing in Evan Aschenbeck to pitch 2 2/3 innings of shutout relief to turn back a Tennessee offense that was starting to get cranked up. The No. 3 Aggies capitalized on a couple errors that led to two runs — Tennessee has committed eight in four CWS games — and on the inability of pitchers Chris Stamos (3-1) and AJ Causey to consistently hit their spots. Grahovac drove Stamos’ 0-2 fastball out to right for the first leadoff homer in a CWS finals since Sam Fuld did it for Stanford against Rice in Game 2 in 2003. Causey walked Jace LaViolette leading off the third, Jackson Appel’s comebacker deflected off Causey’s foot for a base hit and Hayden Schott followed with an RBI single to start the Aggies’ five-run outburst. Kaeden Kent, son of ex-major leaguer Jeff Kent, made it a seven-run game in the seventh with his homer into the right-field bullpen.
Tennessee (58-13), trying to become the first No. 1 seed since 1999 to win the championship, will go into Sunday’s Game 2 having lost consecutive games just once this season and not since March 16-17 at Alabama. The Vols, the nation’s most prolific home-run hitting team in three decades, used the long ball to create some anxiety for the Aggies in the bottom of the seventh. Dylan Dreiling’s two-run shot to right ended the night for reliever Josh Stewart (2-2), and Hunter Ensley’s high fly over the left-field fence off Brad Rudis made it 9-5. The Vols have 180 homers this season, eight behind LSU’s NCAA record set in 1997. Ensley was the only batter Rudis faced. Aggies coach Jim Schlossnagle brought in Aschenbeck, and the left-hander retired six in a row before back-to-back singles put runners on the corners with one out in the ninth. The National Stopper of the Year struck out Ensley and Kavares Tears to end the game.