The Cardinal is 5-0 in elimination games so far in the NCAA Tournament and will have ace Quinn Mathews on the mound Monday.
Having been with Stanford for four full seasons, left-hander Quinn Mathews seems to have a pretty good handle on his team’s personality.No kidding. Stanford advanced to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. by going 5-0 in elimination games earlier this month in the Regional and Super Regionals on its own home field. Now the Cardinal face another do-or-die game Monday when it plays Tennessee, with Mathews expected to start.
“I think we do a really good job with our backs against the wall of just not forgetting that it’s the same game we’ve been playing all year,” junior first baseman Carter Graham said Saturday after Stanford’sto No. 1 Wake Forest. “I think a mistake in those games is to think that you have to do more or try harder and worry about failure.”
In the best-of-three Super Regional, Stanford lost Game 1 in gutting fashion as a three-run lead in the ninth inning slipped away in what became a 7-5 loss to the Longhorns. But Mathews got the start in Game 2 and156 pitches in a complete-game effort as the Cardinal kept its season alive with an 8-3 win. It was the second-most pitches thrown by a Division I player this year.“It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,” MathewsBay Area News Group about the heavy load in his last start.
The Volunteers fell 5-3 to their SEC rivals on Saturday, sending them into the elimination bracket. They struck out 14 times and trailed 5-0 entering the eighth inning but forced Skenes, a projected top-five MLB Draft pick, from the game and scored three runs in the frame before bringing the tying run to the plate in the ninth.
Whether they can build off that momentum against Mathews will go a long way toward determining who stays in Omaha for another elimination game Tuesday and, potentially, a third straight loser-goes-home game Wednesday. Tennessee has seen its own hot run in key games: After losing in the first round of the SEC Tournament, the Volunteers won on the road in the Clemson Regional and beat host Southern Mississippi in the Super Regional round to reach the CWS for a third straight season, like Stanford.