Sunday, May 15, 2011

Commodores Fall in 12th Inning; Lose Series to Gators

It was a heartbreaking finish to the weekend Saturday at Hawkins Field as Vanderbilt fell 6-3 to the Gators to lose their first series at home all season. The Commodores and Gators are an incredibly even team, but at the end of the day, the Gators won the series and Vanderbilt didn't. A team who had been successful driving in runs with 2 outs and with men in scoring position weren't able to do either. By my count, Vanderbilt had runners on 3rd base with less than 2 outs 4 times in 12 innings. Of those opportunities, the Commodored plated exactly 0 runs. For great commentary on the game in 140 characters or less, be sure to check out VUHalkTalk on twitter.

Now, Vanderbilt finds themselves in a 3-way tie for 1st place in the SEC East headed into the final weekend of the season with Florida and South Carolina. Worse, the Commodores lost to both teams, one on the road and one at home. Right now, Vanderbilt has to be considered the 3rd best team in the conference. Making things more complicated, Vanderbilt's opponent, the Georgia Bulldogs, have to win their series against the Commodores in Athens in order to give themselves a shot at making the NCAA field of 64 (to make the draw, a team needs to have a better than .500 record). The Bulldogs are now 26-26.

1 comment:

AspenVU said...

The boys rely on big innings which is fun to see that the capability is there - today the the bats went silent. Relief pitching this weekend (except for JA) was suspect. Hope this series does not cost us the Super if we are fortunate to win the regional and they can break out of the Vanderbilt of past, in all sports, of not being able to win the big / opportunity games.