Tony Vitello describes his mindset as Tennessee becomes one win away from national championship
No. 1 Tennessee is one win away from winning the College World Series. There’s a lot to approach in that scenario for Tony Vitello and the Volunteers with them about to play a winner-take-all in Omaha tonight.
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Vitello discussed his mentality after the Vols avoided elimination and a runner-up finish with a 4-1 win over Texas A&M on Sunday. For him, he just wanted to get a good night’s sleep last night and visit with some loved ones beforehand in order to prepare himself for today’s moment.
“No, I left one of my damn AirPods — I had one in and I could hear the party out on the street. So last night was tough to sleep,” said Vitello. “I’ll put both those in. You just go sound machine — brown noise instead of white noise for me personally. You can make your own selection.”
“But, yeah, you’ve got to eat. You’ve got to rest,” Vitello continued. “You’ve got to say hi to your family. Got some friends in town. So probably can’t take in Omaha the way they will but at least say hi to them.”
As for his players, Vitello said Tennessee is raring to go for their final game. However, while they have been in this spot before, this is a Game 3 that they can’t afford to lose. That’s why he wants them to lock in how they need to in time for first pitch this evening.
“I think you just gotta be a dude because they’re probably chomping at the bit to get back out there in the old backyard baseball redo or rematch,” Vitello said. “I think our guys, just hearing their conversations? It’s kind of like, you know, 1-1 has kind of been the theme for us this year. A lot of game threes. So you can’t do that, though. You’ve got to be a dude and do those things.”
“Then start to filter down to game time and we’ll approach pregame as we see fit. And then, 6:09, just play ball,” said Vitello.
Tennessee extended their season by the necessary extra day with the 4-1 win to end the weekend. A pair of two-run home runs from Dylan Dreiling in the seventh and Cal Stark in the eighth gave them all the scoring that they needed. That’s since their pitching staff, with Drew Beam and Aaron Combs, allowed just one run with a dozen strikeouts combined in eight innings of work. Nate Snead then closed it out with the final three outs at the bottom of the ninth.
Monday is for all the marbles in Omaha with one team set to win a national title. That left it to Tennessee to do what they needed to yesterday and leaves it to them to do what they must today in order to be ready to play for their first championship in program history.