May 19, 2007
Sunday Game Recap: Vanderbilt 6 LSU 2
With Postseason Looming, It’s Full Speed Ahead for Vanderbilt
Post-Game Column By Will Matthews
NASHVILLE – The Vanderbilt baseball team honored its four outgoing seniors prior to Saturday’s final regular season game at Hawkins Field.
But if there was one thing the Commodores were in no mood for following their 6-2 win over LSU to cap a three-game sweep, it was to look back on what has been. Their sights are too squarely locked on what still is yet to come.
“That is not even something that you want to think about right now,” junior catcher Shea Robin said when asked to reflect on the impact Carter Hawkins, Casey Weathers, Matt Meingasner and Stephen Shao have had on the Vanderbilt program. “They – and all the rest of us – still have a lot more to do.”
If there were any lingering doubts about Vanderbilt’s readiness for the postseason, they laid them to rest this weekend. The Commodores were solid in all aspects of the game, getting tremendous starting pitching, solid relief work and timely hitting from up and down the lineup three straight days.
And after clinching the program’s first ever regular season Southeastern Conference championship Thursday night, Vanderbilt kept its foot on the gas Friday and Saturday in sticking LSU with its first sweep of the year.
“After that first game, all I was concerned about is that we would come out here and play just as well on Friday and Saturday,” Vanderbilt Head Coach Tim Corbin said. “It would have been a shame to me if we didn’t play that well. There are a lot of people that play sports that let down. You see it in the pros and you see it at the college level. I think that is a tribute to the kids. That means as much to me an anything, the fact that they didn’t shut it down and they kept playing hard.”
If there was anything fitting about taking time to honor Vanderbilt’s four seniors Saturday, it is that their leadership will play a crucial role in the Commodores being able to achieve the kind of success in the coming weeks that they are after.
“They are going to be huge for us,” Robin said. “Every one of those guys are leaders. They are leaders vocally, they lead on the field and they are keys for our younger guys and for all the rest of us.”
As the top ranked team in the nation and the runaway winners of arguably the nation’s toughest conference, Vanderbilt is virtually assured a high seed in June’s NCAA tournament as well as a chance to host a regional and, if they make it, a super regional as well.
And so while there will be little on the line for Vanderbilt in terms of their national aspirations when they open SEC Tournament play Wednesday night against rival Tennessee, one of the seniors who will counted on for leadership – closer Casey Weathers, who notched two saves this weekend – said the tournament will be a crucial stepping stone to their more lofty goals.
“You learn how to win tournaments by winning tournaments,” Weathers said. “The SEC tournament is set up very similar to Omaha and very similar to the regionals. You don’t want to go down there and get lackadaisical and mail it in and then not have your sharpest stuff once the regionals come. That’s obviously very important to us. We’ve got goals and winning the SEC Tournament is one of them.”
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