Aggies clinch; Vols, Hokies, Longhorns force Game 3s

Texas A&M swept its NCAA super regional and advanced to the College World Series, and Tennessee, Virginia Tech and Texas won Saturday to even their best-of-three series.

Mississippi and Arkansas won their super regional openers to move within a win of making the CWS.

No. 5 national seed Texas A&M beat Louisville 4-3 for a second straight one-run win and returns to the CWS for the first time since 2017, the next step in a turnaround season under first-year coach Jim Schlossnagle.

A year after failing to even qualify for the Southeastern Conference Tournament, Texas A&M posted the second-best record in the conference and how has won five straight in the NCAA Tournament.

The super regional sweep in College Station, Texas, came one year and two days after the Aggies hired away Schlossnagle from TCU, where he had led the Horned Frogs to five CWS in 18 years.

“At this time a year ago I was waking up consistently at 3:30 in the morning in a full body sweat,” he said. “I had just left a place that was so comfortable. To be sitting here going to the College World Series, every single ounce of credit goes to the players.”

Luc Lipcius became the third Tennessee player in program history to hit two homers in an inning when he went deep twice in an eight-run fifth in the No. 1 Volunteers’ 12-4 victory over Notre Dame in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Evan Russell also homered in the fifth, and he and Lipcius now share the Vols’ career record with 39, one more than Todd Helton’s 38 fro 1993-95.

Nick Biddison hit two of No. 4 Virginia Tech’s single-game record five homers and six Hokies pitchers combined to strike out 14 in a 14-8 victory over Oklahoma in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Texas came back from a fiverun deficit to beat No. 8 East Carolina 9-8 on Dylan Campbell’s basesloaded single in the bottom of the ninth in Greenville, North Carolina.

Campbell also hit a tiebreaking homer in the bottom of the eighth for the Longhorns, who entered the inning trailing 7-4.