According to Tennessee Athletics, The 2024 Tennessee baseball team made history Monday night in Omaha – winning the program’s first national title with a 6-5 game three victory over No. 3 Texas A&M at the Men’s College World Series at Charles Schwab Field.
The top-ranked Vols won 60 games en route to the program’s MCWS crown – the first SEC team in history to reach 60 victories in a single season and just the fourth conference team to win the SEC regular season title, SEC Tournament title and the MCWS in the same season.
Tennessee also made history as it became the second No. 1 overall seed to win a national title since the tournament switched to its current format in 1999 – joining Miami who did so in 1999.
With the Vols’ first baseball national title, Tennessee claimed its 24th team national championship (all sports) and its first since 2009.
Holding a two-run lead in the seventh inning, MCWS MVP Dylan Dreiling hit a two-run bomb that sparked a three-run half-inning – giving Tennessee the insurance it needed to win college baseball’s final game of the season.
Zander Sechrist took the bump as Tennessee’s game-three starter, tossing 5.1 innings with seven strikeouts, one walk and one run allowed. Sechrist picked up the win – his sixth of the year – in his final outing as a Tennessee Volunteer.
In a statement for Championship winning Coach Tony Vitello, “No better team to win for the University of Tennessee than a bunch of guys who were truly the definition of a team. And no better play for our program to, I think, be the winning run on that slide, a guy that’s just built with a ton of grit. And his teammates follow his leadership. And it’s a great example of how this group got things done.”