Jayson Gonzalez smashed a three-run homer, and Jack Leiter threw six innings of two-run baseball, as Vanderbilt scored an 8-2 win over Mississippi State in the first game of the College World Series championship at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb., on Monday evening.

Gonzalez’s three-run homer was the key blow, as the Commodores got six runs (all earned) off left-handed starting pitcher Christian MacLeod in the first inning, and added another against Chase Patrick. Gonzalez’s blast came off Patrick with two out in the inning.

Leiter (11-4), making what’s almost certainly the last outing of his Vanderbilt career, pitched six innings, allowing two runs while striking out eight while picking up the victory.

Reliever Nick Maldonado finished with three scoreless innings while picking up his ninth save.

Vandy got just five hits, but made them count. Gonzalez led VU in runs (two) and RBIs (three) while C.J. Rodriguez added a two-RBI single.

"The first inning was obviously a big inning for us in the fact we bounced back from the solo home run, but we were able to get on base and get some big hits. C.J. and of course Isaiah and Jayson. Isaiah [Thomas] and Jayson's were big hits because they came with two strikes and two outs," Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said.

Vandy's bats went cold immediately thereafter, however, Mississippi State wasn't able to manage much offense, period, collecting just nine base runners all evening.

The Commodores can clinch a national title on Tuesday night in the best-of-three series.

The evening didn’t start well. With two out in the first, Mississippi State's Kamren James blasted Leiter's 93-mile-an-hour fastball a couple rows deep in the bleachers in left for a 1-0 State lead.

But Vandy responded quickly.

Enrique Bradfield Jr. led off the inning with a walk and Dominic Keegan did the same with one out. MacLeod then hit Tate Kolwyck and Parker Noland on back-to-back pitches to tie the game.

Then, on a 2-2 count, Rodriguez rolled a seeing-eye single through third for a 3-1 lead. With two out, Thomas got jammed on a 2-2 change-up, but muscled it over third for another run, which chased MacLeod.

"Try and make him throw strikes," Corbin responded when asked what the plan against MacLeod was." We watched several outings prior to, but it was just a matter of throwing strikes, making them land his off-speed pitch up."

I think that was essentially it.

State went to Patrick, who left a 3-2 breaking ball over the plate to Gonzalez, who pulled it out to left for a 7-1 advantage.

"I think the biggest thing was just trying to look for a ball over the plate," Gonzalez said when asked if he was looking for a certain pitch. "The guys in front of me had great at-bats. And they were just passing the lineup along. So the biggest thing for me was trying to keep the line going and continue that first inning."

"[Patrick] throws a lateral slider," Corbin said. "He threw two pretty good sliders to Jayson on the 0-2 count, and Jayson stayed off him. To fight the battle to get to 3-2 was a victory in and of itself. To get a pitch to lift to the middle of the field, he's a strong kid. If he keeps the barrel in the zone, which he did, then he can do a little bit of damage. But that was a quality at-bat for him. I was proud of him."

And then the bats went cold, but it didn't matter. Vandy got its first hit since the first in the seventh, when shortstop Carter Young blooped a single to center to score Gonzalez with one out.

The Commodores, who've been shaky defensively at times in Omaha, also played a clean game in the field. Gonzalez talked about how the team was "loose" at the plate, but it seemed to carry over into the field, where Vandy didn't make an error and also turn da huge double play in the fourth, one that Gonzalez started from third with Noland making the turn at second.

"I think it started did during BP," Gonzalez said. "We were having fun out there hitting BP loose, taking ground balls loose, just trying to have as much fun as we could. And just trying to enjoy the atmosphere that we had tonight.

The Bulldogs used six pitchers, while Vandy went with just Leiter and Maldonado.

That leaves the Commodores fresh for Tuesday. Vandy hasn't named a starter, although freshman Christian Little seems the most likely candidate.

More than likely, it's the last Vanderbilt outing of Leiter's career as Vandy's right-hander is expected to be picked in the top 10 (and most likely, top five) of next month's Major League Baseball draft. On Monday, he threw 107 pitches (63 for strikes) and assessed his outing this way:

"Honestly, I wasn't too happy with it," Leiter said. "I mean, the home run in the first, that happens. It was a fastball count and I gave him a fastball in a very hittable place and he's a great fastball hitter. And he kind of did what great fastball hitters do with it.

But after that, I feel like I settled in and my command was pretty good. And I was feeling my off-speed pitches pretty well. Then later in the game kind of lost the feel for it a little bit. The command was a little down and the feel for the breaking balls was as well. So at that point it became, you know, sort of a pitch-to-contact type situation."

Leiter's fastball was on early as he worked that between 93-95 in the first inning, and bumped that up a couple miles an hour by the third.

But by the third, his breaking pitches were outstanding. Leiter struck out the side in the second and the third, two coming on 77-mile-an-hour breaking balls, two on pitches of 80 and 81 and two more on fastballs of 95 and 96.

Command of his off-speed stuff was really what made Leiter click early.

"I mean, early on in the year I was establishing a fastball pretty much first maybe three, four innings a lot of games. Some games that was kind of all I had," Leiter said, when asked about how important it is for him to command those pitches.

"As I progressed through the year I think the feel for the off-speed pitches has come along well. And, I mean, it's like any other pitch; when you have a feel for more pitches you're going to be more successful because you can use them to get into good counts. And obviously in good counts the numbers kind of speak for themselves."

Leiter's effectiveness started to wane as he passed 70 pitches. Six of the first 10 pitches he threw in the fifth were balls--that resulted in seven-pitch walk to Kellum Clark--but the defense responded with a 5-4-3 double play.

In the sixth, Leiter again struggled some as he hit Southeastern Conference Player of the Year Tanner Allen with an 0-1 breaking ball. He came back to strike out Luke Hancock with a 95-mile-an-hour fastball (his last K of the evening) before a walk and a ground-out ended the inning.

Thomas didn’t start Vanderbilt’s last game coming into the finals, that being Friday’s 3-1 win over North Carolina State. Thomas came in as a ninth-inning defensive replacement for Troy LaNeve in that one after having an off-day defensively in the Stanford game.

Thomas made up for it in a big way on Monday.

The Commodores led 7-2 in the sixth, but things had started to get a little wobbly for Leiter, who was having some issues locating pitches for strikes.

James, who’d homered earlier, lofted a ball in shallow territory near the cutout area of foul territory to shallow right. Thomas had been playing at a reasonable depth in right, and wasn’t shaded to right in any way.

And based on where Thomas played, it didn’t even seem a possibility he could get to the ball. But Thomas made a dead sprint towards the ball, dove head-first and grabbed it inches off the ground just feet away from the wall.

Thomas also had that huge hit in the first, keeping the inning alive for Gonzalez’s homer.

Leiter ends his season with 179 strikeouts, which ranks second all-time in Commodore history. That puts him six ahead of teammate Kumar Rocker's total for this season.

Leiter's 11 wins ties him for sixth on the school's single-season chart.

Leiter ends his season with a 2.13 ERA.

Kolwyck got his first start of the CWS and hit sixth.

Spencer Jones hit for Kolwyck in the seventh, and grounded out.

LaNeve, who's been a starter for a month and a half, didn't play on Monday, snapping a streak of 18 games in which he'd had at least one at bat.