Nothing like a little Volunteer state rivalry to add even more excitement to the NCAA Tournament.
Vanderbilt's first-round NCAA regional game with Middle Tennessee has plenty of implications, state bragging rights among them, and the teams come in evenly matched, having split their two meetings this year. They square off in Louisville this Friday.
Commodore pitcher Mike Minor will start against the powerful line-up of the Blue Raiders in the first game. The Vanderbilt ace, who threw a complete game in his last appearance in Game 1 of the Southeastern Conference tournament against another strong offensive team in LSU, looks forward to the challenge.
"Everybody's excited about it," he said. "It's an in-state game. They're a good team, always close games. It's going to be a lot of fun."
While Vanderbilt comes in with an at-large bid, in large thanks to a run to the SEC championship game, Middle Tennessee received an automatic bid after winning the Sun Belt conference tournament championship.
Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin, whose team is making its fifth appearance in the NCAA Tournament in his seven years in Nashville, feels this is the best the Blue Raiders have been during his tenure.
"It's the most balanced team they have had," Corbin said. "They're a good team and they have played well as of late, like most of the other 64 teams that were selected."
While both squads enjoyed success in the postseason, the two teams haven't met since doing so twice in one week in April.
Middle Tennessee shut out Vanderbilt in Murfreesboro 8-0 on April 7, but the Commodores came back with a 15-7 win seven days later in Nashville in the midst of a four-game winning streak that included a sweep of then-No. 1 Arkansas.
Vanderbilt boasts a strong offense, but no one in the nation, let alone the regional, matches Middle Tennessee's left fielder Bryce Brentz. The sophomore is hitting an eye-popping .482 on the season with 28 home runs, both tops in the country. For good measure, he's driven in 72 runs, which also ranks him among the nation's best.
"He has power to all fields. He just doesn't get out, "Minor said. "He can hit a breaking ball, offspeed, he can hit fastballs. You can't really blow it by him."
Brentz has gone 7-9 against Vanderbilt pitching this season, driving in eight runs; three of his seven hits were home runs.
Corbin also admired Brentz's ability to hit nearly everything Commodore pitchers threw at him.
"What separates him from a lot of hitters is his tremendous bat speed, and he is a bad ball hitter," Corbin said. "He reads pitches well."
The Commodores do have a slight advantage in having played on Louisville's turf field once earlier this season, as well as having the game experience of playing the Cardinals themselves. Vanderbilt played the eventual Big East champions on April 22 and snapped a four-game losing streak with a come-from-behind 4-3, extra-inning victory.
"Having played two of the three teams, that puts us in pretty good shape," Minor said. "We know what their line-up's about. We feel fairly confident, but we're still going to show up. It's the end of the year so we've faced about everything you can throw at us right now.
"We played there so we know what that's about. We're used to it, we'll play well."
