Austin Martin’s performance at the plate during Vanderbilt’s 3-1 win over Louisville garnered a spotlight in Sunday’s College World Series opener.
But the Commodores’ got another solid performance out of their guy on the mound, Drake Fellows.
Fellows, Vanderbilt’s Friday starter for the entire season, allowed just one run and struck out six in seven innings pitched against the Cardinals. With the win, the right-handed junior from Plainville, Illinois, improved to 13-1 on the year. Fellows’ 13 wins lead the nation in that category.
“That was a well-pitched game by both sides, but certainly our guy was very good,” Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin said. “I thought he threw a lot of strikes at the beginning of the game and continued to pound the zone, make it tough on a very good hitting team, a very offensive team that does not strike out, that does not give up.”
Fellows managed to kick off Vanderbilt’s stint in Omaha with a solid outing. He recorded the win opposite Louisville’s Reid Detmers, the ACC Pitcher of the Year, who allowed just one run in 5.2 innings while fanning five. Now Fellows has not allowed more than two earned runs in eight of his last 13 starts.
“I feel like the plan was just to go out there and attack the hitters and just getting all my pitches over for strikes, especially the fastball command wasn’t really there last week,” Fellows said, “and I think that was just the plan of attack, to just keep the location down and attacking the zone and not getting too wild.”