Championship Gold: Vanderbilt baseball wins national title, beats Michigan

OMAHA, Nebraska — Drenched with sweat, sports drinks and tears, Vanderbilt players could barely be pulled apart.

They dog-piled on the pitcher's mound, bounced off one another in the locker room and howled through the hallways of TD Ameritrade Park. And most of what they tried to say to sum up their feelings made little sense.

The moment of winning a national championship simply swept them away.

"I don't know where to start," Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said.

Vanderbilt baseball won its second national championship Wednesday, beating Michigan 8-2 in the winner-take-all title game to cap the College World Series.

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Hendersonville native Mason Hickman pitched a gem. New Yorker Pat DeMarco crushed the critical home run. And Floridian Jake Eder closed out the win.

The Commodores are the best college baseball team in America.

"I got squished under that dog-pile," Eder said. "It hurt at the bottom. But I'll take that kind of hurt any day.

"That was unbelievable. We just won the whole thing."

A Vanderbilt team for the ages

It marked Vanderbilt's fifth national title in team sports in school history – women's bowling (2007, 2018), baseball (2014, 2019) and women's tennis (2015).

This Vanderbilt baseball team (59-12) might be the best in program history. The Commodores also won the 2014 national title and finished runner-up in 2015. But this year’s squad broke the SEC record with 59 total victories, swept the SEC regular-season and tournament titles and won 35 of its last 39 games.

Superlatives ruled the postgame reaction. Michigan coach Erik Bakich, a former Vanderbilt assistant, called Corbin the best coach in America in any sport. He even had his Michigan team stay on the field to witness the celebration "out of respect for Vanderbilt."

Michigan (50-22) missed out on its first national title since 1962. The Wolverines won Game 1 of the best-of-three series, but the Commodores battled back with pitcher Kumar Rocker’s season-saving performance in Game 2 and a much-needed offensive outburst in Game 3.

Rocker was named College World Series Most Outstanding Player for his two wins in Omaha. Austin Martin, J.J. Bleday and Philip Clarke also made the all-tournament team.

Mason Hickman thrived on the mound after scary start

Bakich and the TD Ameritrade crowd of 20,007 saw the result coming long before the final outs. Vanderbilt, the best hitting team in college baseball, finally found the offense it had searched for throughout its two weeks at the College World Series.

The Commodores led 6-1 by the fourth inning and never let up.

Hickman (9-0), a former Pope John Paul II standout, gave up three hits to start the game, then refocused and mowed down the Michigan lineup. He finished with 10 strikeouts and one run allowed on four hits. Over six innings, Hickman tossed the most important 101 pitches of his life.

"I thought we had the chance the whole season to end up in this situation," Hickman said. "I had no idea what exactly my role would be. For me, it was just trying to put our team in any position to win that I possibly could."

Hickman escaped disaster in the first inning. Michigan tattooed three straight singles, scored a run and threatened to open up a big lead. Instead, Hickman settled down and struck out three straight to get out of the first trailing only 1-0.

Pat DeMarco hit a homer to remember

Vanderbilt answered in the second when DeMarco pulled a 2-1 pitch about 385 feet to left field for a solo home run that tied the score.

"I don't think it's sunk in yet for any of us yet, this whole experience. I was just trying to stay in the moment," DeMarco said. "Hopefully, it'll sink in in a couple years."

DeMarco came to the plate again in the third with bases loaded after two walks and Ethan Paul’s single. He drew a six-pitch walk to score a run. Then Stephen Scott smoked the next pitch from Karl Kauffmann through the middle for a two-run single and 4-1 lead.

Kauffmann (12-7) was pulled in the next inning after giving up five runs on three hits and five walks. Jeff Criswell relieved him, but Vanderbilt kept hitting. That’s when it was apparent Michigan’s plan to use two talented starting pitchers as a combo had unraveled.

Harrison Ray added an RBI single in the seventh, and Clarke drove in another in the eighth for an 8-2 lead. Eder, a sophomore, pitched the final three innings, with the last flyout falling into DeMarco's glove in center field.

"I saw the ball go up, and I knew he was going to catch it," Eder said. "The biggest thing is just watching and waiting for that moment. Then the moment came, and we all celebrated together."

Reach Adam Sparks at asparks@tennessean.com and on Twitter @AdamSparks.