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The Texas Longhorns take on the Tennessee Volunteers in an elimination game at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha at 1 p.m. Central on ESPNU.
The loser heads home early from the College World Series, with the Longhorns attempting to avoid a second straight exist from college baseball’s biggest stage after only two games.
Texas suffered a disappointing 2-1 defeat against Mississippi State on Sunday evening amid a flurry of strikeouts and a ninth-inning rally that fell short. Tennessee, meanwhile, dropped a 6-0 game to Virginia as the powerful Volunteer bats went silent.
Right-hander Tristan Stevens (11-3, 2.97 ERA) takes the mound for the Horns hoping to use his sinker-slider combination to keep the Volunteers from bringing that power to bear. On the Texas side, head coach David Pierce’s team needs to make some adjustments at the plate to put the ball in play more frequently to allow Pierce to option to use small ball to put pressure on the Tennessee defense.