Griffen Paige twirled an eight-inning gem and Wright State staved off a desperate ninth-inning comeback to upset Vanderbilt 5-4, eliminating the top national seed from the NCAA baseball tournament on Sunday in Nashville, Tenn.
Vanderbilt is the first No. 1 overall seed that failed to reach the regional final round since the current tournament format was introduced in 1999.
Wright State (40-20) advanced to the Nashville Regional final against Louisville. The Raiders must beat Louisville on both Sunday night and Monday to advance to the super regionals.
Paige (2-3) tossed eight-plus innings of one-hit ball for Wright State, giving up a home run to Brodie Johnston and allowing two runs and six walks with three strikeouts.
It was a wholly different story for Vanderbilt starter Austin Nye (2-1), who gave up four runs on four hits in the first inning and was replaced before the second. Boston Smith hit a two-run homer off Nye and Luke Arnold went yard in the next at-bat.
After Paige exited for Wright State after allowing a walk in the top of the ninth, the Commodores (43-18) mounted a comeback against the bullpen with Mike Mancini slicing a 5-1 deficit in half on a two-out, two-run single. Rustan Rigdon followed with an RBI ground-rule double before Warren Hartzell got RJ Austin to fly out to end the game.
“We show a lot of toughness,” Page said postgame. “There’s never a doubt in our minds that we can compete with anybody out there. These guys are a good team, obviously, the No. 1 seed in the country, and we show up and we never had a doubt. We think we can compete with anybody at the end of the day.”
Vanderbilt won the College World Series in 2014 and 2019 and was runner-up in 2015 and 2021. The Commodores found themselves in an elimination game after falling 3-2 to Louisville on Saturday.
–Field Level Media
