Vanderbilt advances to CWS semifinals

Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb.

Now comes the really hard part for Vanderbilt.

The Commodores extended their first appearance at the College World Series with a 5-1 victory over North Carolina on Wednesday night.

Their reward is another game against Southeastern Conference rival Florida, which has beaten them in four of five meetings this season.

“We’re not thinking, ‘How the heck can we beat Florida?’ It’s not really in the back of our minds at all,” Connor Harrell said. “We feel we can compete with them. We feel we match up with them well, but we’ll see what happens on Friday. We’re going to come in confident.”

As well they should after their second CWS win over North Carolina.

Taylor Hill and Corey Williams combined on four-hitter and Harrell and Curt Casali homered for the Commodores (54-11), who led 5-0 in the third inning.

Vanderbilt, which lost 3-1 to Florida on Tuesday, would need to beat the Gators on Friday and again Saturday to reach next week’s best-of-three finals.

Hill (6-1) outdueled Greg Holt (7-2) in a matchup of Washington Nationals draft picks.

Hill, taken in the sixth round, allowed a run and four hits in seven innings in his first outing since June 5.

“He did a good job of neutralizing their offense and got us deep into the ball game where we could put Corey in,” Vandy coach Tim Corbin said. “Connor’s home run was big and followed up by Curtis. We did enough offensively to get by.”

Holt, an eighth-rounder who was making his second start of the season, lasted 22/3 innings. He gave up five runs and four hits, leaving after Casali’s homer.

North Carolina (51-16) left nine runners on base for the second straight game and stranded a total of 34 in its three CWS games. The Tar Heels were just 7 for 39 with runners in scoring position.

“That’s probably what will be written about,” Carolina coach Mike Fox said. “We left a lot of people on base out here for three games, but a lot of that has to do with the other team, and we were facing some pretty good arms. It didn’t happen for us.”