Texas A&M eliminates Notre Dame thanks to elite pitching performance by Nathan Dettmer
Texas A&M, the No. 5 overall seed in the 2022 NCAA Baseball Tournament, faced elimination on Tuesday at the College World Series in Omaha.
In the other dugout was Notre Dame, a red-hot team that eliminated No. 1 seed Tennessee in the super-regional round.
Nathan Dettmer took the hill for the Aggies in the do-or-die game and he had a wonderful outing. In 7 innings, Dettmer struck out 6 Fighting Irish batters and left the game with the Aggies ahead 5-0.
However, the Irish started to claw back in the bottom of the eighth inning. They pushed a run across and were threatening again before a double play ended the threat:
The Aggie double play ends a potential Irish rally.
📺 ESPN#MCWS x @AggieBaseball pic.twitter.com/YQ2xP9nxtv
— NCAA Baseball (@NCAABaseball) June 21, 2022
After getting the leadoff runner on base to start the bottom of the ninth, Notre Dame had its runner picked off by Aggie relief pitcher Joseph Menefee.
That was the last threat the Irish mustered, as Menefee closed things out for a 5-1 Aggie victory.
Offensively, Trevor Werner had a solo shot for the Aggies to make it 4-0:
Trevor Werner with the solo 💣! 💪
📺 ESPN#MCWS x @AggieBaseball pic.twitter.com/gPQN7MSBEb
— NCAA Baseball (@NCAABaseball) June 21, 2022
This hit that led to a Notre Dame error plated the first 2 Aggie runs in the top of the third inning. By the end of the third, it was 3-0 in favor of Texas A&M:
Gig'em Aggies!! @AggieBaseball strikes first!
📺 ESPN#MCWS pic.twitter.com/zEs4xE52Ox
— NCAA Baseball (@NCAABaseball) June 21, 2022
Next up, the Aggies advance to play Oklahoma with a spot in the championship series on the line. The Aggies will need to beat the Sooners twice in order to advance, as Oklahoma has yet to lose in Omaha.
SEC!
#StayAlive
Beating Ole Miss twice is going to be a chore for either Arkansas or Auburn. I’m hoping for an Auburn versus Oklahoma championship series.
Big cajones on Dettmer. Happy he got the OU loss out of his head and had a dominant performance.
Congrats, Aggies. Hope they can beat Oklahoma twice. Tall order.
At least Schloss managed to keep the bullpen pretty fresh today. That can only help. Oklahoma is pretty hot right now, but the Ags have a little swag back.
Congratulations, Aggies! I look forward to the next game. If you should defeat the Sooners twice, then you’ll get my congratulations and my support for having won the bracket. No hard feelings here. But I want the Sooners to win it all, of course. Good luck to all! BOOMER!
If we beat your Sooners twice we deserve to be there. I’d love for it to be an all SEC West dogfight, but as Bayou Tiger said, it’s a tall order. Now that t.u. was sent back to Sodom and Gomorrah (Austin)….may the remaining teams with the most heart, guts, and skill win. And BTHO OU!
Aggies stayin live. Smash on OK