Finishing 'unfinished business' — how the Vols conquered the 2024 Men's College World Series

OMAHA, Neb — They had waited for this moment at Tennessee forever it seemed like. And ever. And ever. In the dugout, in the stands, even up on the suite level where VIP Vols from other sports had gathered, because they certainly didn’t want to miss this. An army of Orange all here to see history.

Nothing was guaranteed, of course. Anyone who has followed Tennessee baseball very long understands that. Two years ago the Vols had by all accounts the best team in the country and didn’t even get here. In 2021 and ’23 they were in Omaha and went 1-4. So continued the bittersweet past of almost. Breaking through would not be easy.  How could it be, given the long journey here?  “We couldn’t have done it any more stressful,” outfielder Hunter Ensley would say afterward. “I wouldn’t want to have it any other way. That’s been the image of this group the whole year. Why not let it show up in the last game of the year?”

Why not? And so a Men’s College World Series that began with four one-run games ended that way, too, Tennessee nearly blowing a 6-1 lead and holding off Texas A&M 6-5 Monday night. Suddenly, the big void smack in the middle of the Vols’ baseball program is no more. Barely.

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“It clearly could have been either team’s trophy tonight,” coach Tony Vitello said.

Felt that way in the other dugout, too. “Same number of hits. Same number of errors. Probably the difference in the ball game was timely hits and some of their hits were homers and ours weren't,” Aggies coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “It's tough to swallow, even when you make it this far. Everybody wants to win their last game.”

What happens when a program reaches the end of its rainbow? This happens, if you’re Tennessee Monday night:

First thing a coach does is hug his father, each unsure who would cry first. The paint was not yet dry on the victory when Vitello went looking for his dad Greg, and an embrace that in a way was decades in the making.

“Maybe the most precious thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Tony would say later of that hug. “I know when my high school career ended with him, we went in the outfield and played catch together (right after the loss). I kept that ball. I kept that memory. But this is more special because there was so much more buildup to it and so much went into it.”

“He was shaking like crazy. I felt like I was the dad and he was the kid because he wouldn’t stop crying.”

HOW IT HAPPENED: Tennessee wins the 2024 Men's College World Series

A famous Vol athlete — maybe the most famous Vol athlete — comes down to the field to share the moment.

“You just pull so hard, you bleed orange,” Peyton Manning said. “These past couple of years we’ve been knocking on the door and all of our hearts have been broken, but if you keep knocking on the door it means you’re doing something right.”

A basketball coach, who has long sought this championship moment for his own program, savors another sport’s glory. Clearly, there is synergy in the Vols’ athletic department.

“There’s a lot if the coaches want it to be,” men's coach Rick Barnes said. “I’m blessed at my age to be in a department where it’s incredible, maybe more than anywhere I’ve ever been. We’ve got something special going on.

“I know where Tony started. I know what he’s done.”

The newly minted championship coach tries to explain his feelings.

“I don’t have any emotion right now. I’m stunned,” Vitello said. “I feel like I got punched by Mike Tyson."

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The Most Outstanding Player of the MCWS, holds the championship trophy after the last three of his 11 RBI in Omaha. What must he be feeling?

“It’s heavier than I thought,” Dylan Dreiling said.

It ought to be, considering all it took for the Vols to finally get their hands on it. But on a Monday night with the heat on literally — 98 degrees at first pitch made it the warmest MCWS game in 39 years — the long project of building and hoping and hurting finally came to an end.

Turns out, the shadows from the past never mattered to Tennessee.

True, the door to a championship had never opened for the Vols, no matter how many times they showed up in Omaha. In that case, they’d just break it down. With, among other things, 184 home runs.

True, no team carrying the No. 1 seed had been able to win an MCWS this century. In that case, Tennessee would be so good that no curse or trend or statistical anomaly could rain on the parade. When the Vols weren’t hitting baseballs over the wall the past 10 days — Tennessee had 11 Omaha homers — they were running into the wall to catch them. Or whatever else it took. The winning run Monday came not on a blast into the Nebraska night but a remarkable tag-avoiding slide at home by Ensley. Small stuff that was really big.

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This program had been built for this moment with talent, facilities, resources, coaching and a relentless drive to do something about history. The Tennessee masses had watched LSU and Ole Miss and Mississippi State and Vanderbilt and Florida dogpile in Omaha in recent years, the envy running deep orange. This golden era for SEC baseball had no Tennessee fingerprints on it.

Now it does.

“It means everything for the university,” Vitello said. “It’s one of the most loyal fan bases in the country, and they’re hungry. You’ve got to feed them every now and then. And people have done it in various sports. There have been legends that have passed through there and now Dylan Dreiling is damn sure a legend.”

MVP: College World Series Most Outstanding Player award history, winners

Maybe so is Christian Moore, who started this decisive night with a leadoff homer to go with his historic cycle early in the MCWS.

Maybe so is Zander Sechrist, a Vols pitching presence for years who went the first 5.1 innings allowing one run Monday night, giving Tennessee the sound start it so wanted. “We had unfinished business, especially this being the third time we've been here in the last four years, 2021 didn't do well. '22 you could arguably say that was the best college baseball team ever. '23 we got to experience winning at least a game here, but the job wasn't finished,” he said. “And '24 just felt a little different.”

Sechrist, a Georgia native, was talking about he ended up part of this after being recruited by several suitors. “I go back home and I realize that out of all the recruiting visits, the only thing I bought was a Tennessee hat,” he said. “It just felt like home.”

Maybe so is Ensley, whose fearless dash into the wall in center to make a catch last week was his signature play of this MCWS. Or it was until Monday night. His disappearing act at home plate to score from first base in the seventh inning was a testament to the determination Tennessee brought to town. He said he originally thought a deep drive by Kavares Tears was going out — “I guess you could say I was assuming a little bit” — but then realized it had only hit the wall. “I knew I had to bust my ass to be able to get home, sorry for the language” he said. When he got the go signal at third and raced home he was headed toward one side of the plate but noticed the throw was drawing catcher Jackson Appel that way and shifted directions to the other, like a running back finding a new hole in October. Appel was left to tag air.

“I couldn’t really tell you what was going through my mind,” Ensley said, “other than don’t get tagged out.”

It didn’t seem all that important at the time, with Tennessee ahead 6-1. It got a lot bigger by the ninth when Texas A&M cut the margin to 6-5. And now that 657th and last run of the season for the Vols will forever be the distance between Monday night’s deliverance and maybe still waiting.

“Hats off to him, he saved me,” said third base coach Josh Elander, who had waved Ensley home. “He was also a great football player. That was a little shimmy in and out.

“That was just Hunter Ensley being a winner. We’ve had maybe some prettier prospects with more tools but the guy’s a winner and that’s why he’s in there.”

Said Vitello, “It was a great example for how this group got things done.”

CLINCHED: Watch Tennessee's final out from the MCWS

Indeed, this victory march was just not one long home run derby. This was a team with a sense of collective purpose.

“The bond we have is unbreakable,” Dreiling said.

And a deep understanding of tradition and what city they were in. 

“This is a special place. I knew it was last year when we got put out,” Ensley said of Omaha. “Once we got put out I knew this was a place I wanted this team to experience again and I knew we had the talent on this team to be standing here like this. There’s a lot of teams that have come before us that have helped build the foundation for this. There’s a lot of guys that deserve this more than I do. I’m glad we were able to do that tonight for them.”

And a steely edge about them.

“That was our niche,” Vitello said. “We got to play with some attitude. We got to play with some grit. And we're going to have to get some guys that maybe don't want to say yes to a school with a better winning record than us. And guys like that, like C-Mo (Moore) and some others with some attitude, have done a lot for this program.”

So here they are with 60 wins, the most for a national champion in 35 years and most ever for an SEC team.

Here they are with a clean sweep of the season goals — SEC season title. SEC tournament title, then the fifth SEC team in a row to win in Omaha.

Here they are, at the Rocky Top of college baseball.

No wonder the tears from Greg Vitello. “Just part of it was relief because of how hard he works,” he said of those tears in the arms of his son. “And the second part is... I don’t know, it was just... boom.  He played two sports for me in high school and there were some ups and downs. You watch your son progress and he gets into coaching and you live with every pitch.”

BRACKET: View the final 2024 Men's College World Series bracket

No wonder the fervor from Peyton Manning,

“I’ve been texting him all along,” he said of Vitello. “You don’t want to change your texting routine just because you get to the World Series, right? So it’s real short and sweet. But he texted me this morning and he said a lot of tough decisions in today’s game. I just gave him a quote that my old offensive coordinator at Tennessee, David Cutcliffe, used to say about decision making, It was an old General Patton quote from World War II. Make a decision and do it like hell. So I hit him with that.

“Even before this whole World Series started, I said to him that we were the No. 1 ranked team a lot going into the (NFL) playoffs. I said you’ve got to find something to get mad about to create an edge. Pretend you’re the 16th-ranked team or the eighth-ranked team. Make something up, just get mad. I’m saying this because I’m pulling so hard for him. He knows how to coach. He knows what to do.

“Would you rather be knocking on the door and have your heart ripped out like we did two years ago or would you rather be so removed where it doesn’t hurt so much? It’s supposed to hurt the closer you get, and it has hurt. But boy this is all worth it tonight.”

No wonder the reflections from Vitello.

“You have to lean on other people to survive this thing because it is a monster and the traditions are so deep. We've got all the resources in the world with where we're at, but it's a place where we kind of had to build a foundation to catch up with some of these other storied programs. And I don't think you ever — I guess Coach (Nick) Saban would argue — but you don't ever get to a point where you can look down on everybody because the instant you do that, you're probably going to take an upper cut from one if not multiple places.”

Not this June. Tennessee was the last team standing, and Charles Schwab Field stayed orange long into the evening. There is nothing like the first time