Notre Dame jumps on top of Tennessee early with 2-run blast

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have brought the thunder to their Friday showdown in the 2022 NCAA Baseball Tournament with the top-ranked Tennessee Volunteers. Carter Putz launched a two-run blast to put Notre Dame up 2-0 early in the top of the first inning.

Check it out here.

The Irish strike first!

📺 ESPN2#RoadToOmaha x @NDBaseball pic.twitter.com/tgO3Zt0TzE

— NCAA Baseball (@NCAABaseball) June 10, 2022

Putz currently has 7 home runs and 44 RBIs this season for the Fighting Irish. Notre Dame will likely need plenty more juice than that from their bats on Friday if they’re going to take down the ‘Vols.

Tennessee is well known as not only the most powerful baseball team in the country from a batting standpoint, but they’ve got some incredible pitchers as well. The Vols are the top-ranked team in America for a reason. The game is being played in Knoxville, Tennessee and is being nationally televised on ESPN. Today’s matchup is Game 1 of the best of 3 series.

It didn’t take much longer for Notre Dame to hit another home run. Jared Miller, who’s playing in his first game since May 14, blasted a solo shot to put the Fighting Irish up 3-0 in the top of the second inning. After he hit the solo home run, he decided to flip his bat as he began trotting the bases. Then, the Fighting Irish’s Jack Zyska blasted yet another two-run shot to go up 5-0 in the top of the third inning. Notre Dame now has three home runs in the first three innings.

This year’s appearance in the Super Regionals is the first time in Notre Dame baseball history that they’ve made it to the Super Regional in back-to-back seasons. If the Fighting Irish could pull of the win today, clearly it’d be the biggest win of the season for their program. It’ll be exciting to see how it plays out.