May 26, 2007
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Never Say Die Commodores Land Spot in SEC Championship
Post-Game Column By Will Matthews
HOOVER, Ala – In two memorable late game at-bats and one infamous throwing error, Shea Robin became a journalist’s dream anecdote.
Vanderbilt’s junior catcher, in a dizzying roller coaster of emotions, went from hero to goat and back to hero in the span of an inning and a half during the nightcap of Vanderbilt’s doubleheader sweep of Mississippi Saturday, propelling the Commodores into the Southeastern Conference Tournament championship and at the same time epitomizing the unbelievable resiliency that has come to define this most unbelievable of teams.
During its five-day stay in Hoover, Vanderbilt has had to play out of the losers bracket, beat a very talented Mississippi team twice in a day and overcome a three-run tenth inning deficit. Yet, by virtue of Robin’s two-run seeing-eye single into right field in the bottom of the tenth, Vanderbilt lives to play Arkansas for the tournament’s championship Sunday afternoon.
“Every guy in the dugout was saying when I came back in after the defensive inning in the tenth that the game was going to come back to me, that I would get an at-bat and that the game would come back to me,” Robin said. “I didn’t think I’d have a chance to win it. I thought maybe I’d get an at-bat, have a chance to move a guy over or something like that. This is something that I am going to remember for a long time.”
Robin, hitless in his first four at-bats entering the bottom of the ninth in the day’s second game, led off the inning by lining a double down the right field line, eventually coming around to score the tying run on a sacrifice fly by David Macias.
But Robin gave it all back and more in the top of the tenth, airmailing his attempt to pick off Mississippi’s Cody Overbeck from third down the right field line, a miscue that allowed the Rebels to plate the go-ahead runs on their way to a three-run inning that seemingly spelled doom for Vanderbilt’s tournament hopes.
In the bottom of the tenth, however, after junior Dominic de la Osa crunched a leadoff homerun, and after Pedro Alvarez and Ryan Flaherty hit consecutive singles and Overbeck threw away Matt Meingasner’s sacrifice bunt attempt allowing a run to score and putting runners at second and third, Robin made good on his chance at redemption.
And Vanderbilt, for the 30th time in their school record 50 wins, had come from behind to claim victory, this time in the most dramatic and electrifying fashion yet.
“It is a reoccurring issue and I guess that’s a good thing,” said shortstop Ryan Flaherty, who collected three hits and two RBI’s in Saturday’s nightcap after getting two hits and driving in three in Saturday’s first game – a 13-1 rout that Vanderbilt had to win in order to force a second game. “That’s what championship teams are made of. It’s not always going to be easy. And I think tonight we proved to people that we can battle back like we have all year in the postseason.”
Vanderbilt Head Coach Tim Corbin has said his team’s propensity for coming from behind has become so engrained in its psyche that the possibility of losing is just not something that ever crosses anyone’s mind.
Saturday night was clearly no exception.
Robin said during Saturday’s post game press conference the conversation in the dugout prior to the bottom of the ninth inning in the second game centered not on whether Vanderbilt would manage to win but rather how the Commodores would manage to pull off the feat.
“[Assistant] Coach [Erik] Bakich said it best in the bottom of the ninth,” Robin said. “Right before he went out to first base he said `How are we going to win this, how are we going to do it this time.’ And that is just how everybody feels. Going into every game it is not whether we are going to win, it is how we are going to pull it off and what inning we are going to do it in.”
As exhilarating as Saturday’s wins were for Vanderbilt, Flaherty was mindful that there is still some unfinished business ahead. Vanderbilt, whose only SEC Tournament championship came in 1980, has lost in the SEC title game two of the past three years.
“This is awesome,” Flaherty said. “Words really can’t describe it right now. But at the same time, we have a job to take care of tomorrow. Last year we were in the same situation and we didn’t take care of business. We’ve got to find a way to pull it out tomorrow.”
Will Matthews spent three years as an investigative reporter with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group in Southern California. He earned his Master of Divinity degree in 2007 from Vanderbilt Divinity School. To email Will your feedback, Click Here
