The Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&M Aggies secured their berths to the College World Series over the weekend.
Ninth-seeded Texas (47-20) beat No.8 East Carolina University (ECU) 11-1 on Sunday in the third game of a best-of-three super regional in Greenville, South Carolina. The Longhorns will be making their record 38th trip to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, and will be after their seventh national championship in program history and first since 2005.
The first pitch of Game 3 between Texas and ECU was delayed one hour due to lightning in the area, and a second weather delay in the middle of the first inning lasted almost five hours.
The Longhorns were ahead 4-0 — thanks partly to an Ivan Melendez three-run home run — when the second weather delay began. Texas expanded its lead to 9-1 after scoring five runs in the second inning after the weather delay. The Longhorns then coasted to victory.
ECU won the Friday opener in the best-of-three series 13-7 for its 22nd win in its previous 23 games. However, back-to-back losses to Texas ended ECU’s hopes of making its first-ever appearance in the College World Series.
ECU had a five-run lead over the Longhorns in the middle of the seventh inning of Game 2, but Texas scored seven runs in the final three innings to fend off elimination and force the decisive Game 3.
The Longhorns’ first opponent in Omaha will be unseeded Notre Dame, who pulled off the weekend’s biggest upset by eliminating the No.1 national seed, Tennessee. Notre Dame beat Tennessee 7-3 in the winner-take-all Game 3 of the Knoxville super regional.
Tennessee is the third consecutive No.1 national seed to be eliminated in super regionals. Arkansas was eliminated last year and UCLA in 2019. There was no college baseball tournament in 2020 because of the pandemic.
Tennessee finishes with a school-record 57 wins after opening the season with a 31-1 record and sweeping the SEC regular-season and tournament titles. Their 158 homers during the season are the fourth-most all-time in Division I. Tennessee had lost just one three-game series all season before being eliminated by Notre Dame.
The fifth-seeded Aggies of Texas A&M earned their spot in Omaha with a two-game sweep of No.12 Louisville over the weekend. The Aggies improved to 5-0 in tournament play and were the first team to punch their ticket to Omaha. First-year head coach Jim Schlossnagle leads Texas A&M, and it will be the school’s first appearance at the College World Series since 2017.
The Aggies will face the unseeded Oklahoma Sooners in their first game in Omaha. The Sooners earned their first trip to the College World Series since 2010 by wrapping up its super regional with an 11-2 Game 3 win on the road against No.4 national seed Virginia Tech.
Ole Miss, Arkansas, Stanford, and Auburn also secured their berths to the College World Series. The College World Series begins on Friday, June 17, and is a double-elimination tournament.