Dylan Dreiling describes his massive home run in Game 3: 'I kind of blacked out'

Tennessee has reached the summit of the mountain, winning the College World Series Monday evening after completing a 2-1 championship series victory over Texas A&M.

The final victory would never have been possible if not for Dylan Dreiling, though. Texas A&M had answered back with a tying run in the third after Tennessee had grabbed the early lead with a solo Christian Moore home run to left field.

Tennessee didn’t leave the tie on the scoreboard for long, however, as Dreiling scored teammate Blake Burke on a sac-fly in the bottom of the third before a Dean Curley single added another run to push the lead to 3-1.

Thanks to more help from Dreiling, Tennessee added a cushion to their lead in the seventh inning, scoring three runs. Two of those came off the bat of Dreiling, who barely sent the ball over the fence and just past the outstretched arms of Texas A&M’s outfield to score a two-run homer.

The Aggies made a late push, but Dreiling’s home run provided just enough leeway for Tennessee to hang on, 6-5. After the game, he addressed the surreal moment of hitting what wound up being a game-winning home run.

“I kind of blacked out again in that moment,” he admitted. “I know first pitch I overswung on a heater way up. And then I kind of just told myself, I said, ‘Just see the ball deep and just put a good swing on something.’

Evidently, Dylan Dreiling saw something he liked and let her rip: “He threw me a change-up over the middle, and I just almost tried to be late on it to stay back, and put a good swing on it.”

The swing was gold and that ball sailed into the bullpen, then giving Tennessee a 5-1 lead. The Vols added another run that same inning as Kavares Tears almost matched Dreiling’s effort two batters later, but the ball stayed inside the park and fell for an RBI double to make it 6-1.

The Aggies came back with two runs apiece in the eighth and ninth innings to scare the bejesus out of Tennessee fans, but ultimately, A&M went down swinging and missing on their final at bat, one run short of a comeback.