In the end, they just ran out of gas.
Vanderbilt had an awful night in every phase of the game, as Mississippi State smacked the Commodores by a 9-0 score in the College World Series final on Wednesday evening in TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb., in the last game of the college baseball season.
The Commodores had one hit, made three errors, allowed 17 State base runners, and excepting a brief moment in the first inning, never seemed a threat to win.
The defending national champion (the 2020 CWS wasn't played due to Covid-19) ended the year at 49-17.
It's the first national title in any sport for the Bulldogs, who, on the other hand, played almost flawless baseball with their backs against the wall following a Game One loss on Monday.
Vanderbilt didn't return any regulars from that 2019 team and the inexperience showed.
The bats never got going against Will Bednar, who, pitching on short rest, no-hit Vanderbilt for six innings. Shortstop Carter Young broke up the no-hitter with one out in the eighth off Landon Sims.
State knocked ace Kumar Rocker around for five runs (four earned) in 4 1/3 innings in his final collegiate start.
"Before the season I said I wanted the young guys to experience what I experienced [in 2019]," Rocker said. "We came up a game short of it."
State added four insurance runs off Chris McElvain in the seventh, including home runs by Logan Tanner and Kellum Clark.
And there were multiple defensive breakdowns along the way.
It was likely the final game for Rocker, the MVP of this event as a freshman in 2019. The Commodores will miss him, and coach Tim Corbin, literally, couldn't immediately talk about it when asked about what Rocker had meant to the program.
“Can’t say right now," Corbin responded to a question about Rocker, after perhaps a 15- second pause as a fought back tears. "He’s just a one in a million kid. His fibers are so real and so pure. He just loves team … he’ll go down as one of the best we’ve ever had at Vanderbilt. ... He’s meant so much to our program, he’s meant a lot to college baseball, he’s meant a lot to the [Southeastern Conference.]"
The writing seemed to be on the wall from the start.
State’s Rowdey Jordan hit a 92-mile-an-hour fastball to right for a single on the game’s first pitch. After a strikeout of Tanner Allen, Rocker got a gift come-backer from Kamren James for what could have been an inning-ending double play on the first pitch.
Instead, Rocker threw too far left of second baseman Parker Noland. The throw sailed into center and the Bulldogs had men on the corners.
With one out, Luke Hancock lofted a fly ball to right to score Jordan.
That one mistake cost not just a run, but also forced an additional 14 pitches, assuming the Commodores had turned the double play.
"Sometimes numbers don’t tell the story and they don’t with that team, because that challenges you with every single pitch," Corbin said.
Vanderbilt appeared it might have an answer when Bednar issued two first-inning walks. But State, which played tremendous defense all night (and all throughout the College World Series), turned a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning on a Noland ground ball.
That's how it went most of the rest of the night with the bats. Excepting a pop-up that C.J. Rodriguez to shortstop Logan Forsythe in the second, hit didn’t hit a ball out of the infield until Brayland Skinner took a possible double away from Rodriguez in deep left to start the fifth.
In the second, Rocker walked Scotty Dubrule and Skinner to start. Forsythe drove in a run with an RBI ground-out, and after Rocker had an 0-2 count on Jordan, umpires called a pitch clock violation on Rocker even though Jordan had stepped back into the box seconds before the next pitch.
That added a ball to the count and then Rocker threw two more. Jordan then slapped a full-count pitch down the line to left for a 3-0 lead.
The bottom fell out in the fifth.
Jordan, leading off the fifth, hit an 0-2 pitch to Young, who charged and bobbled it as Jordan was awarded an infield single. Allen singled through second and then with one out, Hancock put an 0-2 pitch past first for an RBI single.
Tanner added another run-scoring single on a 2-2 pitch, knocking Rocker out of the game on his 92nd and final pitch.
"That’s what made them natty champs," Rocker said. "It’s a good hitting lineup. They earned it."
McElvain got Rocker out of that jam and then pitched a scoreless sixth. But Tanner homered with one out in the seventh and it unraveled quickly from there.
By that time, it seemed impossible that the Commodores could come back as the bats, which began to slump at the SEC Tournament, never came around again. Afterwards, Corbin talked about the toll a long season took on a lineup that included zero players who'd been regulars in 2019.
"You don’t ever want to say something that would take away from Mississippi State because they were the better team, but we lost a lot of emotional physical and mental energy at the end," Corbin said. "Our bats didn’t have the same strength and energy at this end. .... We were gritty and that’s probably what got us to this point at the end. ... We just did’t do that we didn’t play our best baseball at the end."
Corbin said that Young, who'd suffered a dislocated shoulder in a game against FIU on May 18, played through pain throughout the CWS.
"It’ll get treatment after the year. … That kid’s tough as nails and he was hurting. .. On a 1-to-10 scale he’s probably a '5' or a '6.'
Vanderbilt is now 2-2 in the CWS final series, winning in 2014 and '19, while also falling in 2015. Corbin said he had no regrets about how the season ended.
"I just don’t think you can measure teams based on a gold trophy that’s an inch and a half inch bigger than the other one. … Winning a national championship is insane, you can’t do it. It’s so difficult to do. … I’m at peace with what happened. .. 10-15 years ago I might have felt completely different… when every kid gives it all they’ve got… I’ve got no problem with outcomes," he said.