Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello doesn’t plan to fix what isn’t broken. On Friday, a reporter asked Vitello if he intends to make any changes to Tennessee’s pitching lineup before facing off against Texas A&M in the College World Series championship.
“Are you a spy for Texas A&M? No, we don’t have anything different,” Vitello said with a laugh. “We’ll kind of take it one game at a time, literally, with our guys, withstanding Beam. We’re right back where we started the year.
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“We wanted to play against Texas Tech, a great program, and throw everything and the kitchen sink at them. But we also knew Drew Beam was a guy that’s provided some consistency and experience. We wanted him to throw Game 2 and do his thing, and we would work around that.
“In a way we’re back to where we started and don’t see a need to do anything uniquely different, other than just go with what our gut is for that present inning to put ourselves in a decent position.”
Vitello’s gut in Tennessee’s lone meeting against Texas A&M earlier this season boosted the Volunteers to a 7-4 victory. In the win, Tennessee pitched Chris Stamos, AJ Causey and Kirby Connell.
The trio held the Aggies to nine total hits while recording 12 strikeouts compared to only three walks. Now, Tony Vitello must again discover the winning formula for Tennessee to secure its first national title in program history.
Tennessee and Texas A&M will clash in Game 1 of the best-of-three series at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
2024 NCAA College World Series: Bracket, game times, TV
All times ET.
June 14
- Game 1: North Carolina 3, Virginia 2
- Game 2: Tennessee 12, Florida State 11
June 15
- Game 3: Kentucky 5, NC State 4 (10 innings)
- Game 4: Texas A&M 3, Florida 2
June 16
- Game 5: Florida State 7, Virginia 3 | Virginia is eliminated
- Game 6: Tennessee 6, North Carolina 1
June 17
- Game 7: Florida 5, NC State 4 | NC State is eliminated
- Game 8: Texas A&M 5, Kentucky 1
June 18
- Game 9: Florida State 9, North Carolina 5 | North Carolina is eliminated
June 19
- Game 10: Florida 15, Kentucky 4 | Kentucky is eliminated
- Game 11: Tennessee 7, Florida State 2 | Florida State is eliminated
- Game 12: Texas A&M 6, Florida 0 | Florida is eliminated
June 22
- MCWS Final Game 1: Tennessee vs. Texas A&M, 7:30 p.m. | ESPN
June 23
- MCWS Final Game 2: Tennessee vs. Texas A&M, 2 p.m. | ABC
June 24
- MCWS Final Game 3 (if necessary): Tennessee vs. Texas A&M, 7 p.m. | ESPN
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