Wednesday afternoon’s rematch between Tennessee baseball and Florida State is being planned. In order to remove the Tar Heels and give FSU another chance to compete, the Seminoles defeated North Carolina on Tuesday afternoon.
With victories against Florida State and North Carolina, the Vols have taken a 2-0 lead in the College World Series. Thanks to a solid pitching effort by Drew Beam and the Vols bullpen, Tennessee overcame UNC in game two and needed a walkoff victory to defeat FSU in the first round.The game on Wednesday is expected to start Zander Sechrist, who has experience in key situations. He started the game for Tennessee that resulted in the SEC Championship during the regular season, as well as the regional and super regional championships.
He hasn’t swayed in any of those three pivotal starts to get the Vols to where they’re at now and will have the opportunity to do it again by sending the Vols to the CWS Finals. Sechrist pitched a combined 17 innings in those three starts and allowed zero earned runs with 13 strikeouts.
Jamie Arnold, FSU’s top pitcher, may be benched again. Five days ago, the Vols played their inaugural game against the Seminoles, and Arnold was there. Arnold made his 2024 CWS debut, giving up four runs in 5.0 innings pitched.
Given that Conner Whittaker only faced five hitters on Tuesday, the Noles may also look on him to eat some innings as the starter or out of the bullpen. Whittaker gave up three runs in 3.1 innings of relief versus Tennessee.
As we seen in Game 1 between these two clubs, both offenses have also brought their hot bats to Omaha. Florida State scored 27 runs in three games while in Omaha, compared to Tennessee’s 18 runs in two games.
Tennessee is also 11 home runs shy of tying LSU’s single-season home run record of 188 total home runs. The Vols have hit 177 home runs so far as they continue to inch closer to the record and could take advantage of Florida State’s pitching if they rely on their best guys on short rest.
Wednesday’s game will also be the first time Tennessee will be the away team in this year’s CWS. The Vols have been the home team in both of their games in this year’s College World Series so far.
