Vanderbilt baseball season ends abruptly in NCAA Tournament

In the end, it took just four minutes — following a four-hour lightning delay — for Vanderbilt’s last hopes to peter out in the regional round of the 2023 NCAA Baseball Tournament.

That’s how quickly right fielder RJ Schreck, first baseman Parker Noland and designated hitter Chris Maldonado — who had combined to hit 31 home runs and drive in 130 runs this season — flied out, struck out and grounded out, respectively, in the ninth inning of the Commodores’ 2-1 loss to Xavier at Hawkins Field on Sunday.

The abrupt finish, after such a long wait for the game to restart, only seemed to add further shock to the completion of a promising Vanderbilt season that wasn’t supposed to end like this.

The Commodores (42-20), the nation’s sixth-seeded team, were only one weekend removed from capturing the highly competitive Southeastern Conference Tournament. Vanderbilt had won six of its last eight games going into the NCAA Tournament, having taken a regular season-ending series from Arkansas before blowing through the SEC field in Hoover, Ala.

Vanderbilt opened the Nashville regional with a 12-2 thrashing of Eastern Illinois on Friday.

A super regional at Hawkins appeared to be beckoning at that point.

Instead, a pair of one-run losses — an 8-7 defeat to eventual regional champ Oregon on Saturday preceded Sunday’s loss — meant the Commodores had been ousted in the regional in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2008 and 2009.

Moments later, Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin pounded his hand on the podium repeatedly as he reflected on the finality of it all, following so much preparation.

“We’ve spent from Aug. 22 to right now going hard,” Corbin said. “It’s every day … no freakin’ days off. Jesus, you just go and go and go and go and go and go, and then ... it shuts down on you. It’s a suck pill. It just sucks. But it’s what it is.”

Vanderbilt’s pitchers did what was necessary against Xavier (39-25), as starter Sam Hliboki (51/3 innings) and reliever Patrick Reilly (22/3 innings) combined to allow just six hits and one earned run, throwing 66 strikes on 99 pitches.

It was a lack of offense and one critical error that doomed the Commodores.

Vanderbilt managed just four hits against starter Luke Hoskins and Justin Loer, scoring just once when Davis Diaz’ RBI single plated Jonathan Vastine in the third inning. The Commodores struck out seven times and put just one runner in scoring position over the game’s final six innings.

“They just had command of multiple pitches and they were able to execute them as well, just got us off [our] game, so hat’s off to them on that,” Vanderbilt center fielder Enrique Bradford Jr. said.

Said Corbin: “We just had a hard time with the bats today, for whatever reason. Credit to Xavier.”

The error occurred in the seventh, when Vanderbilt second baseman RJ Austin — who two batters earlier had made a great stretch for a forceout at second base — couldn’t handle a potential double-play grounder. That left the bases loaded with Musketeers, and when Reilly hit Matthew DePrey with a pitch, Jared Cushing trotted home with an unearned, game-winning run.

Vastine singled in the eighth inning and moved to second on Bradfield’s ground out to third, but that’s as close as the Commodores came to tying the score.

Corbin wondered aloud whether Vanderbilt’s tightly contested, late-night loss to Oregon the previous night might have taken some steam out of the Commodores on Sunday.

“It was a tough ballgame [Saturday] night,” Corbin said. “[Saturday] night probably had something to do with today. I hate to say it, but it did. It just shook the energy a little bit. That’s a tough one, but there’s a lot of teams — and we’ve had them before — that come back from that. You get punched in the gut and you come back. It’s tough. It’s not easy. But you’re capable of doing it.”

Why couldn’t this Commodores team do so on this particular weekend?

“I don’t know,” Corbin said. “I’m not sure.”

The only thing for sure was that a Vanderbilt team that had seemed to re-start its engine over the last few weeks — after a slide late in the regular season — was all of a sudden done.

Just like that.

“It’s tough to finalize something,” Corbin said. “It’s tough to put it to bed. That’s what takes the energy out of you ... putting the final touches on a team.

“There’s only one team that can [win a championship], but I guess you always dream about it being you.”

4-seed Lipscomb also fell in the regional round, dropping game one to region host Clemson 12-5, then losing to 3-seed Charlotte 9-2.