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Tennessee baseball head coach Tony Vitello.
College Football

A toast to Tony Vitello: College baseball world reacts to Tennessee’s College World Series victory

Spenser Davis

By Spenser Davis

Published:

Tennessee won a 6-5 thriller over Texas A&M on Monday night in Omaha to clinch its first-ever College World Series title.

Tennessee made history in a couple of ways with this triumphant victory. First, the Vols became the first No. 1 overall seed to win the national championship since Miami did so way back in 1999.

The Vols are also just the 4th team ever to win the SEC regular season, SEC Tournament and College World Series titles in the same year.

Aaron Combs had the honor of getting the final out in Tennessee’s win over the Aggies. Here’s video of the series-clinching strikeout and Tennessee’s ensuing celebration:

All of this success comes just 7 years after Tony Vitello took over as head coach in Knoxville. He inherited a program that had missed 12 consecutive NCAA Tournaments prior to his arrival.

After the game, Vitello had an emotional interview with ESPN after the game. He was then interrupted by a water cooler bath before going on to celebrate with his team.

Here’s video of that moment:

A short while later, Vitello jumped into the crowd of Tennessee fans in Omaha to celebrate with the Vols faithful who made the trip:

Vitello has established himself as one of the nation’s best college baseball coaches. Tennessee has reached Omaha in 3 of the last 4 years and now has a national championship to put on its trophy case. It’s Tennessee’s first team national championship of any kind since 2009 (women’s indoor track & field).

Here’s more of the reaction to Tennessee’s big win along with a few more videos from the scene in Omaha:

Spenser Davis

Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.

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