Vanderbilt (51-10) and North Carolina (49-14) are the first two teams to punch their tickets to Omaha after winning their best-of-three series over the weekend. Vanderbilt beat Oregon State 11-1 on Friday and then 9-3 on Saturday to win the Nashville super regional. North Carolina beat Stanford 5-2 on Friday night and followed that with a 7-5 victory on Saturday to win the Chapel Hill super regional.
Vanderbilts victory on Saturday was fueled by Anthony Gomez and Aaron Westlake. Aaron Westlake had a game to remember on this particular Saturday. He blasted three two-run home runs to lead his team going 3-4 with six RBI's, three runs scored, and a partridgein a pear tree. Gomez wasn't too bad himself finishing the day 4-6 with three runs scored and two RBI's.
Westlake's first blast came in the 1st inning with one-out that gave Vandy the 2-0 lead. He blasted another in the 6th inning, and his third in the 8th inning. Westlake was batting third in the order for Vandy, the fourth, fifth, and sixth hitters for Vandy went a combined 0-11 on the day.
North Carolina got a solid team effort to pull off the victory Saturday in Chapel Hill. Stanford took an early 1-0 lead on the Tar Heels off of starter Kent Emanuel, who settled down after the first inning and threw five consecutive scoreless innings.
Eight of North Carolina's nine starters had at least one hit on the day. North Carolina's big inning came in the 7th off Stanford reliever Chris Reed, the No. 16 overall pick by the Los Angeles Dodgers in this past draft. Reed threw the final three innings for the Cardinals and surrendered three runs (one earned) on four hits, two walks and one strikeout.
Jacob Stallings had the two big hits for North Carolina as his two-RBI single with two outs in the 7th inning broke the game open for the Tar Heels at that point and extended their lead to 6-1. Stanford put up four runs in the top of the 8th inning to get within one run. But Stallings again came through in the 9th inning with a two-out RBI single that gave North Carolina a two-run lead going in to the 9th.
Michael Moran pitched well in relief for North Carolina and got the save as North Carolina joins Vanderbilt as the first two teams to punch their tickets to Omaha.