OMAHA, Neb. — It's come down to one game for a championship ... and while Michigan would have liked to avoid this position after winning game one of the College World Series, 7-4 over Vanderbilt Monday, the Wolverines are excited and loose heading into a true National Championship game.
The Commodores tied the series 1-1 behind Kumar Rocker's gem, a 4-1 victory Tuesday. And now U-M will face righty Mason Hickman, who has yet to lose this year.
They're not intimidated.
"It's baseball," right fielder Jordan Brewer said. "It's fun."
While they were subdued after the loss, they realized their National Title goals were still right in front of them.
"I think it only seems fitting that our team would go to three games," head coach Erik Bakich said. "That's just kind of been our M.O. here in all these rounds. It just seems like we're very comfortable in that spot.
"After the game, I just sensed a calmness of our team, and they're excited to play [Wednesday]."
They'll need to be better than they were in the first two games to pull off the program's first title since 1962. Like the Regional and the Super Regional, they weren't at their best with their first chance to put an opponent away. Errors and missed opportunities cost them against Creighton in a meltdown that forced a Game Three in Corvallis, Ore., and it was similar in the Game Two Super Regional at UCLA.
They responded both times in elimination games, however, to advance. Tonight is win or go home, and giving up sloppy runs — only one of the four Tuesday night was unearned, but wild pitches led directly to two others — would be a recipe for a loss.
The Wolverines will start Karl Kauffmann, a third-team All-American who struggled with his command in his last World Series outing (four walks), but gave up only three runs in six innings. U-M will have Jeff Criswell available to work, too, giving U-M a 1-2 combination of outstanding pitching.
"I'm sure in a World Series final Game 3, he's feeling pretty good," Bakich said. "I know he and Coach [Chris] Fetter have had those conversations, and that's been the plan all along. He's starting on Friday against Texas Tech, and if it went to Wednesday, he was going to be ready to go.
"The one thing about Karl, he's older, he's mature, he knows how to take care of his body. He has done the things he needs to do from a workout standpoint and a recovery standpoint to get his body and himself ready to go on four days' rest and pitch on the fifth day."
Hickman, meanwhile, has two great pitches, including a slider/curve that can be tough to manage.
"I was always very impressed with him in high school, and I obviously follow Vanderbilt very closely so follow all their games and all their success and saw how well he did when he pitched as kind of their fourth starter this year," Bakich said. "Now that he's moved into the three hole of the rotation, he's got great numbers, and he does a really good job of pounding the zone with three pitches.
"We'll have our work cut out for us tomorrow, that's for sure. I'm sure [reliever] Tyler Brown will have no issues coming back tomorrow, even though he threw 40 pitches [Tuesday], just knowing that kid and what he's all about and his makeup and his story. So I don't think 40 pitches is going to be a deterrent to come back tomorrow. But he's got really good stuff, as does their whole pitching staff."
So now it's go home, win or lose, and one last game with each other. They haven't thought of it that way, shortstop Jake Blomgren said. They're still concentrated on the task at hand and the understanding that they could win a title with a victory.
It's been a special season either way, but they want to be remembered as champions.
"I just read their faces in the dugout and they were smiling, and this is a bounce-back team," Bakich said. "We've had so many bouts of adversity where we've been knocked down that tonight doesn't ... I didn't sense that they were totally bummed out and would kind of come into tomorrow still dragging their feet. They walked out of here with their head held high.
"They know once we hit the pillow tonight, this one is over, and are you kidding me, we've got a chance to play again tomorrow, and we'll just have to play better. I thought we had chances today and I thought we could have competed a little bit better in certain spots, but we had some backwards K's, got caught guessing. But I would be shocked if we didn't come out tomorrow with our best energy and all the things that have allowed us to play well up to this point."
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