The NCAA Division I baseball tournament began with memorable upsets. Milwaukee beat Auburn, and Saint Mary’s defeated UCLA.
Oklahoma Overcomes Early Deficit
Oklahoma defeated The Citadel 8-3 after being down 3-1 in the fourth inning. They scored seven unanswered runs. Dayton Tockey and Trey Gambill both hit homers for Oklahoma. Tockey hit a solo shot in the first. Gambill’s two-run homer tied the game in the fourth.
Oklahoma had 15 hits. Dasan Harris led with three hits. Cord Rager earned the win, striking out eight over six innings. LJ Mercurius threw three shutout innings, striking out four.
Michael Gibson paced The Citadel’s offense with three hits, two runs and an RBI. He doubled in the first and hit a solo homer in the fourth.
VCU Eliminates Tennessee
VCU eliminated Tennessee from the tournament. They scored five unanswered runs from the third through fifth innings for a 5-2 lead. Tennessee led 2-0 in the third after Reese Chapman’s two-run shot, but Travis Adelman responded with a solo shot. An RBI groundout and a sac fly put VCU up 3-2 in the fourth.
Nate Kirkpatrick delivered a two-RBI double in the fifth for VCU. Stone Lawless hit a solo homer in the sixth for Tennessee, followed by an eighth-inning sac fly.
Tennessee had a runner on third with two outs in the eighth and a runner on first with one out in the ninth but could not score. Eli Holbert struck out 10 over six frames for VCU.
UCLA’s Come-From-Behind Victory
UCLA, the top overall seed, defeated Virginia Tech 6-5 after trailing 5-3 in the bottom of the ninth. Mulivai Levu and Roman Martin led off the bottom of the inning with back-to-back home runs. UCLA then sandwiched a pair of singles around a strikeout before Phoenix Call hit a game-winning RBI single.
UCLA has now authored 29 come-from-behind victories. The two teams combined for seven home runs. Owen Petrich, Ethan Gi
The tournament continues with teams vying to advance out of the double-elimination regionals.