Irish keep rolling with win against Longhorns
OMAHA, Neb. — Notre Dame starting pitcher John Michael Bertrand and two relievers held the Texas Longhorns’ potent offense in check, and the Fighting Irish scored in all kinds of ways in a 7-3 victory Friday night in their first College World Series game in 20 years.
The Irish (41-15) carried over their momentum from eliminating No. 1 national seed Tennessee in the last weekend’s Knoxville Super Regional with a strong allaround performance against a program making its record 38th appearance in Omaha.
Notre Dame will play Oklahoma on Sunday. The Longhorns (47-21) will face Texas A&M in an elimination game between Lone Star State programs.
Bertrand (10-3), roughed up in his start against Tennessee last week, limited the Longhorns to three runs on six hits in 5 1/3 innings. Alex Rao and Jack Findlay gave up no hits in 3 1/3 innings, with Findlay earning his fourth save.
The Irish scored six runs on nine hits against Texas starter Pete Hansen (11-3). They picked up single runs on Jared Miller’s homer in the first inning, an RBI groundout in the third and a safety squeeze in the fourth, and they scored three more in the fifth on Tristan Stevens’ balk and a couple of singles.
Carter Putz’s homer in the ninth gave the Irish a four-run lead.
The Longhorns arrived in Omaha with a program-record 128 homers this season, most among the CWS teams and fourth nationally, and had hit three or more in each of their previous four games.
They mustered only six singles against Notre Dame and were the only team in the first two CWS games to not hit a homer.
Douglas Hodo II had an RBI single, and the Longhorns scored on a squeeze play and wild pitch.
Texas and Notre Dame traded runs on the safety squeeze plays.
The Longhorns’ Dylan Campbell came home on Eric Kennedy’s bunt in the third. Bertrand picked it up and threw to second for the force rather than try to get Campbell at the plate.
In the fourth, Hansen flipped to catcher Silas Ardoin after fielding Spencer Myer’s bunt, but Jack Brannigan was able to touch the plate with his hand just ahead of Ardoin’s sweep tag. Brannigan was called out initially but ruled safe after a video review went in favor of the Irish.
Paul Mainieri, who coached Notre Dame in its previous CWS appearance, watched from a stadium suite with Brian O’Connor, who was the team’s pitching coach.
Mainieri went on to coach at LSU from 2007 until he retired last year. O’Connor left to become head coach at Virginia in 2003 and has been there since.
Two-time Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning, a college football star for Tennessee, watched the game from the stands. Fittingly, the retired quarterback wore a hat bearing his signature line at the line of scrimmage: “OMAHA!”