Notre Dame now makes its way to the prestigious baseball diamond in Omaha

It wasn’t a touchdown for the Fighting Irish, but what it did on the baseball diamond kept No. 1-ranked Tennessee packing instead for Knoxville instead of Omaha and sent unseeded Notre Dame to the NCAA  Division I Baseball World Series that throws the initial pitch Friday afternoon at Charles Schwab Field.

Yes, the Volunteers had the gaudy won-lost record, the quality pitching, hard hitting and fancy fielding, but looked on with stunning grief after the visitors who usually pack their famed campus with gridiron news took two-of-three and topped it off with Sunday’s 7-3 deciding win that emptied their dugout, had their fans in the stands jumping with surprising joy, and no doubt the same with their other many supporters all over the land.

Said Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello: “I’m stunned yes, but offer no excuses, Norte Dame will get to Omaha and probably do some damage. It’s a really tough group. As for my guys, what needs to stick with them once times passes. What do they say? Time heals all wounds. I don’t know who ‘they’ are because sometimes those take a long time.”

Notre Dame, now 40-14, arrived in Tennessee Friday and quickly made a statement, blasting three home runs to open a 4-0 lead and silence the packed home crowd at Lindsay Nelson Stadium. The Vols closed the gap to 4-3. but the Sound Bend guys upped their lead to 8-3 and an 8-6 final. Game two was a different story and different ending as Tennessee mixed better hitting with betting pitching and cruised to a 12-4 triumph.

But the deciding game was where Notre Dame erased a 3-1 deficit in the seventh inning. David LaManna, who had already hit a solo shot over the fence in left, clouted a 2-run shot the other way and Jack Brannigan followed with the go-ahead blast to right-center, and then the Irish added three more runs in the eighth and then freshman lefthander Jack Findley took over in the fourth inning he worked.

With no on and two down, FIndley, on a 3-2 count, left the final home team batter taking the last fastball from him and it was all over but the stunning reversal.

The last time the Fighting Irish got this far it won the national title over Sothern California.

Thus, three cheers for old Notre Dame as it now heads for Omaha, Nebraska, to open the Elite Eight Friday in the 7 o’clocknight game of the double header versus 9th-seeded Texas, which nipped 8th-seeded East Carolina, 2-1 in games.

In the scheduled 2 afternoon opener, it’s 5th-seeded Texas A & M (42-18), the first to move on to Omaha after taking two from 12th-seeded Louisville, 5-4 and 4-3, the closest pair of these Super Regionals, and now goes against another surprise in Oklahoma, which this time followed up yet another Sooners’ softball championship.

Until this Tennessee was the toast of college ball with an explosive offense and a pitching staff stocked with projected major leaguers. With a school-record 57 wins that began with a 31-1 run and sweeping the Southeastern Conference regular-season and tournament titles, its 158 home runs were fourth all-time in Division I.

Saturday winds up the first round with another pair of 2 and 7 p.m. contests.

In game one, it’s 2nd-seeded Stanford (47-16) against unseeded Arkansas (43-19), and in the closer, surprising unseeded Ole Miss (37-20) meets up with 12th-seeded Auburn (42-20).

At its Klein Field at Sunken Diamond in Palo Alto, the Cardinal surprisingly went down in game one at home to unseeded Connecticut, 8-2, then recovered to blank the Huskies, 7-0, and outdo them, 10-5, and now lines up against the Razorbacks, who got past 10th-seeded North Carolina,4-1 and 4-2 at Boshsmer Stadium in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Mississippi, on the same path now as state and SEC rival Mississippi State was on last year when it disposed of Vanderbilt to win the national championship. But Ole Miss had to blank 11th-seeded Southern Mississippi on the road,10-0 and 5-0, to shock the home town turnout at Pete Taylor Park in Hatiesburg after it was actually named the last team in the field of 64.

Auburn had a long trip to make in taking two-of-three from 3rd-seeded Oregon State at Goss Stadium in Corvallis. The Tigers took the opener, 5-4, dropped game two, 4-2, and celebrated the cross country adventure with a 5-4 closing victory.

It was a tight tussle at Clark Clair Stadium in East Carolina, the No. 8 Pirates versus the No. 9 visitors from Texas, with East Carolina taking game one via a 13-7 football final, being nipped 8-7, game two, and being routed 11-1, to get the Longhorns (46-20) to Omaha.

So now the field has whittled down from 64 to the eight who earned its way to Omha.

Can’t forget Oklahoma, and it truly did something special by following on the heels of its national-champion softball team, which won its sixth all-time and second in a row just a few days before the men took the field. Shortly after, the Sooners of the diamond made it to Omaha for the first time since 2010. It wasn’t lucky, it was good, damn good in carrying a 42-21 mark to Omaha, where Creighton and Nebraska would like to play in the post-season, but how about Oklahoma finding its way there?

It was all done on the road by the Sooners, first traveling to Gainesville to eliminate host Florida, the 14th-seed, in a best-of-three, then taking off for Blacksburg, Va., to oust red-hot, 4th-seeded Virginia Tech with heavy bats, smart base running, and nasty pitching before a full house of Hoakle fans. Game one was tight but Oklahoma got an early on the long ball and held on 5-4, then took a 13-7 football score loss that evened things, but clouted four home runs in the deciding game and got the pitching and base running to win going away 13-4, and making a dash to the mound after the final out at English Field.

Well, it’s not hail, hail the gang’s all here, it’s some familiar uniforms and some newer ones, but to get to Omaha is a welcome sign for all eight who have.

And no doubt you can figure on the Oklahoma softball players and their supporters to be in those stands

now to root for the Sooner men switching over to the white stitched baseballs. Has the school ever won both the same season? Nope, not yet.