Tennessee Baseball Scrimmage Highlights: Transfer infielder and freshman catcher both hit their second home runs of the fall season.
**OMAHA, Neb.** — Tennessee baseball relied on a lesson from the fall: it all comes down to breathing.
As Kavares Tears described, deep breathing helps slow the heart rate and refocus on the task. This technique is what the Vols are taught to use when the pressure rises or nerves kick in. That lesson paid off in the bottom of the ninth inning on Friday night, during the biggest stage in college baseball.
Tears applied that lesson with a leadoff triple in the ninth inning. After a lot of deep breathing, Dylan Dreiling completed the victory. It was a dramatic and unexpected beginning to the College World Series.
“We’re a very gritty team,” Blake Burke said. “When we go out there, we always believe we can score whatever is needed. We’re not aiming for a huge inning, just trying to win every pitch. We threw some jabs all game, then landed a big punch in the ninth.”
Tennessee walked off Florida State with a 12-11 win in their College World Series opener, the first walk-off of the season for the Vols.
The game reflected Tennessee’s season-long resilience — an offense that always keeps them in the game.
### An Inning Away
Head coach Tony Vitello felt at ease in the Vols’ makeshift locker room before the game, but that changed as the ninth inning approached. He clutched dirt from the ground as the tension mounted.
Tears calmed him down, telling Vitello to relax, though Vitello admitted he was probably the most nervous in the dugout.
The players, however, were focused on staying loose and aggressive.
“We just had to get back to what we do,” Billy Amick said. “Play our style — loose, aggressive baseball. We’ve been playing clean and hitting well all year, and we just had to return to that, which we eventually did.”
Despite some mental errors and defensive mistakes that cost Tennessee several runs, the offense never gave up.
When the ninth inning came around, that proved true again. With two outs, Tennessee’s top hitters — as they had done all season — delivered.
The top four batters finished the night going 16-for-22 with seven RBIs.
“With this offense, we’re always one inning away,” Dreiling said. “That’s been our motto this year. We had faith that a big inning was coming and trusted each other.”
This big ninth inning marked Tennessee’s second-ever College World Series opener win, sending the No. 1 seed into the winner’s bracket, setting up a key clash with North Carolina.
It also brought the team one step closer to a championship, with the Vols believing they’re never more than one big inning away.
“We’re always just one inning away,” Moore said. “They put up six; we can, too. We have confidence in each other, and we fought to get back in it.”
