OMAHA, Neb. — Gavin Grahovac homered to begin the game, Texas A&M broke it open with a five-run third inning and the Aggies beat Tennessee 9-5 in the Men’s College World Series finals opener Saturday night.
Evan Aschenbeck pitched 2 2/3 innings of shutout relief to turn back a Tennessee offense that was starting to get cranked up in the seventh inning. The Aggies (53-13) are a win from their first national title. Game 1 winners have won 13 of the 20 titles since the championship became a best-of-3 series in 2003.
Tennessee (58-13), trying to become the first No. 1 national seed since 1999 to win the championship, will go into Sunday’s Game 2 having lost consecutive games just once this season and not since March 16-17 at Alabama.
The No. 3 Aggies capitalized on a couple errors that led to two runs — Tennessee has committed eight in four MCWS games — and on the inability of pitchers Chris Stamos (3-1) and AJ Causey to consistently hit their spots.
Grahovac drove Stamos’ 0-2 fastball out to right for the first leadoff homer in a MCWS finals since Sam Fuld did it for Stanford against Rice in Game 2 in 2003.