Dan Fleser
Nate Ackenhausen would never be mistaken for Paul Skenes.
The LSU pitcher has neither the stature nor the bearing of his celebrated teammate. Yet the similarities in their College World Series pitching lines against Tennessee were unmistakable. After Skenes, the Tigers' alpha arm, lugged a shutout into the seventh inning on Saturday, Ackenhausen, a lower-profile reliever, did the same for six innings of Tuesday’s 5-0 rematch victory at Charles Schwab Field.
With the win, LSU (50-16) advanced to face Wake Forest. Tennessee (44-22) gathered its baseball gear and departed with a 1-2 record in Omaha.
Ackenhausen said he found out he was starting via a text message shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday from coach Jay Johnson.
“I didn’t respond until 11:10,” Ackenhausen said. “I was sleeping in a little bit. I think I just texted him, ‘I’ll give it all I’ve got.”
Said Johnson: “I can confirm the time lapse.”
Ackenhausen’s imitation of Skenes was achieved with very little practice. He was making his first start of the season and hadn’t pitched more than 3.2 innings in any of his 15 previous outings.
No matter, he sure fooled the Vols into thinking he was another ace. Their hitters didn’t match the battle level of Monday’s comeback against Stanford. They had just two serious scoring threats and mustered six hits against Ackenhausen and reliever Riley Cooper.
“I think there was more frustration at times than we’ve had as of late,” UT coach Tony Vitello said. “Maybe a word I can’t say or two – like that. But that’s just because guys were trying. And it was a tight game.”
UT arguably had the pitching advantage with Drew Beam starting. Ackenhausen and LSU had other ideas, however.
Here’s some other observations from the season finale.
-Tennessee’s Hunter Ensley had two chances to be a hitting hero.
After Maui Ahuna’s two-out double in the fifth, the Vols had runners on second and third. With a 2-0 count, Ensley flew out to right field.
The best opportunity came in the seventh. With two outs and the bases loaded, Ensley swung and missed at two pitches out of the strike zone by Cooper. Still, the Vols center fielder managed to work the pitch count full – only to hit a cue shot of a grounder to first base for the final out.
-Beam pitched 5.2 innings, giving up two runs and six hits while striking out nine. A brisk wind blowing in from center fielder was an extra defender, keeping hard-hit balls by Dylan Crews and Tommy White in the park for fly-ball outs.
- Zane Denton’s throwing error in the sixth allowed LSU to score its second run. It came after UT’s third baseman fielded a bunt that possibly could’ve rolled foul.
“It looked like it was going foul, but I’m also standing in the dugout spitting seeds into the ground,” Vitello said. “He’s out there playing in front of 25,000 or whatever we’ve got in here and he’s trying to make a play. And who knows? It may not have rolled foul.”
-Vitello made an interesting decision in the eighth inning, replacing reliever Seth Halvorsen in mid-count in favor of Camden Sewell. Halvorsen had two strikes on Jordan Thompson and had just thrown a 100-mph pitch.
With two baserunners on via hit batsmen, the thinking presumably was Sewell was more likely to coax an inning-ending, double-play grounder. That’s exactly what happened but second baseman Christian Moore dropped the ball after making the force out and couldn’t throw to first. Sewell then hit a batter and threw a wild pitch, enabling the Tigers to score a third run.
Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri, who has covered University of Tennessee athletics since 1988. He is a 2022 inductee to the Tennessee Sportswriters Hall of Fame. He can be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.