NASHVILLE, Tenn.--Xavier's Luke Hoskins and Justin Loer combined to four-hit Vanderbilt, ending the Commodores season by a 2-1 score in the Nashville regional at Hawkins Field on Sunday afternoon.

The Commodores, in the unfamiliar position of playing an early-Sunday elimination game in their park--that hadn't happened at Hawkins Field since 2007, when Vandy lost its Saturday night winner's bracket game with Michigan--made several critical mistakes late.

Second baseman RJ Austin booted a potential double-play ball that kept the eighth inning alive, and then pitcher Patrick Reilly nicked Matthew DePrey with the bases loaded for the go-ahead run two hitters later.

With its season on the line in the ninth with a 2-1 deficit, the Commodores--the visiting team--sent lefties RJ Schreck and Parker Noland and righty Chris Maldonado to face Loer, the Musketeers' left-handled closer, after a weather delay of almost four hours.

"That was a tough one on a lot of levels," Corbin said. "We just couldn't get much going offensively. We pitched well. Pitched extremely well. (Sam) Hliboki did a nice job for us and certainly Patrick did as well. But we just had a hard time moving the bats today, for whatever reason, and you give credit to Xavier.

"But, it's tough to finalize something. It's tough to put it to bed. And that's what takes the energy out of you. It really is putting the final touches on a team. There's only one that can (win it all) and you dream about it being you.

"But it's a tough deal and we'll manage. The sun will come up tomorrow and life will move forward."

Loer struggled to find the zone in warm-up restarts. He then threw two balls to Schreck before getting two strikes looking and then a weak pop-up to center. Noland took three balls, watched a fastball go by for a strike and then swung at two sliders out of the zone. Maldonado then went down 0-2 before fouling a pair of balls off and then grounding weakly to second to end it.

Vandy's only run came in the third, and Xavier tied it in the sixth on Matt McCormick's sacrifice fly to left.

The Commodores (42-20) won their NCAA tournament opener with a 12-2 win over Eastern Illinois on Friday, but dropped Saturday night's game to Oregon by an 8-7 score.

Vandy caught its only breaks in the top of the third, when it scored its only run. Jonathan Vastine led off with a double just past the first baseman McCormick and then Davis Diaz hit a hard, low liner off the glove of Grant Stephenson that went into left. Corbin sent Vastine home, and the sophomore barely beat the tag as Diaz just slipped into second on the back one of the play.

That sequence provided the game's first run, but the Musketeers turned a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.

Vandy starter Sam Hliboki got two outs on his first two pitches and had a five-pitch first. He cruised into the fourth on 35 pitches but Xavier's McCormick and Garrett Schultz had back-to-back, hard-hit singles before Hliboki got a fly-out to left on pitch 44 to end things.

The lead remained 1-0 until the bottom of the sixth when Hliboki hit DePrey and then gave up a bloop single to Andrew Walker with nobody out. Tyler DeMartino flied out to center but DePrey took third and then Vandy pulled Hiboki after 61 pitches.

McCormick then hit a fly ball to deep left off Reilly, scoring the tying run.

Vandy's bats, meanwhile, went cold. The Commodores had just one runner on between the fourth and seventh and then the Musketeers loaded the bases with one out after Austin booted a hard-hit, but potentially inning-ending, double play.

Reilly bore down and struck out leadoff man Jack Housinger on three pitches, the last being a 97-mile-an-hour fastball. But he nicked DePrey on the hand with the next pitch, giving the Musketeers their first lead at 2-1.

Corbin was asked whether he considered challenging the call.

"I looked for (catcher Jack Bulger) and I thought (home plate umpire) Jim (Schaly) had it," Corbin said. "On replay, I doubt it would have been overturned. There wasn't enough video evidence, to me, at least.

" It was one play. We had to die by the sword on that one. That was a tough one."

"He caught the ball. He caught it cleanly," Corbin added later. "Outside of that, I didn't get anything from him. The reaction of the hitter was such that it probably skimmed him, but it didn't adjust the ball at all.

"It's a run. It's one run. Was it the difference in this game? Yeah, it was, but it's an umpire's call."

Vandy's Vastine had a one-out single in the eighth--that came off Loer---but the Commodores only got him to second. That was the Commodores' first runner to reach since the third on something other than an error.

After Reilly pitched around a one-out walk in an otherwise perfect eighth, umpires signaled both teams off the field for a lightning delay while Loer was in the middle of ninth-inning warm-ups. Play resumed around 8 Central for a game that started around 2.

Corbin was asked how the team handled the delay and if he was concerned if it would take energy.

"I really didn't know what it would do," he answered. "We've been in that environment before (with) Cal State Fullerton (in the 2015 College World Series) and ended up winning it. Kentucky, (2019), we ended up winning it.

"You never know what that energy is going to do. It was a tough four hours for everyone."

Corbin was asked about an offense that was inconsistent much of the year, and certainly was on Sunday.

"I'm not going to talk about the year right now," he said. "I'm going to think about what we did well. I'm not going to look back and try to analyze what the hell happened during the course of the year, whether it was up or whether it was down. I'm not going to do that right now."

That included center fielder Enrique Bradfield Jr., who didn't look 100% much of the year, which Corbin confirmed Sunday.

"He was playing hurt," Corbin said. "You know, I think that's part of playing hard and things that happen inside the game."

Bradfield was asked directly about his health this season.

"If I was good enough to be out there, then I was," Bradfield said.

Corbin was asked if he felt the team maximized expectations this year. The Commodores, picked towards the middle of the Southeastern Conference, finished a game out in the league's overall title race and then won the conference tournament last week.

That came without Friday night starter Carter Holton, who missed most of the second half of the season. The Commodores also had Saturday starter Hunter Owen miss several weeks and played almost all season without freshman Andrew Dutkanych, who likely would have been the team's mid-week starter, but pulled a hamstring in March and never returned.

"I would never say 'maxed out,'" he answered. "I think you have teams that get to this point where you can feel their energy and you feel like they've got a chance to put a run together. Certainly, when we won the SEC, you wondered if that was the case or not.

"But that was a tough game last night. Last night probably had something to do with today. I hate to say it, but it did. It took the energy a little bit. That's a tough one.

"But you know 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. And it's tough. It's not easy. But we're capable of doing it.

"You know, our health was challenged all year. But I'm not going to sit here and talk about that. We did the best we possibly could. It was a good year. But you get to this point right here and you're hosting at home, the kids and all of us, you know, our intentions are to move (to a super regional).

"And when you lose at home, then, you know, the other teams did it. They played better than we did and we have to live with that. It's a tough pill to swallow but it is what it is."