No. 1–seed Tennessee baseball wins their first Men’s College World Series title.
![No. 1–seed Tennessee baseball wins their first Men’s College World Series title.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/rdxk7lfa/production/4a26a1c95e0177375a61d70b02a2f0e77b06a5dc-1600x1067.jpg?w=1200&h=800&auto=format)
The GIST: The No. 1–seed Tennessee Volunteers etched their names into NCAA baseball history this week by literally stealing their first-ever MCWS championship with Monday’s 6–5 winner-take-all Game 3 dub over No. 3 Texas A&M. Here’s how the rest of the last ’ship of the 2023–24 season played out, by the numbers:
7: The number of strikeouts that lefty pitcher Zander Sechrist threw in over five innings of work to start his Vols off strong. Tennessee’s offense then hammered 13 hits to claim a comfortable 6–1 seventh-inning lead, which proved enough to contain A&M’s four-run rally and secure the win.
25: The years since the last No. 1–seed won the NCAA baseball championship in 1999, which also happened to be the first year the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams. Consider this curse officially broken.
60: How many games the Vols won en route to their MCWS crown, a number no other SEC team has ever reached in a single season, and no champion has hit in 35 years.
38,340: The number of Jello shots Tennessee fans purchased during the annual Rocco’s Jello Shot Challenge, making the charity challenge–winner the same as the natty-winning team for the fourth straight year. Not not saying Jello wins championships...
1.2M: How many people watched the first six games of the MCWS, setting a new viewership record. As for the three-game championship series, it drew the second-most finals viewership on record, trailing only last year’s numbers.
Enjoying this article? Want more?
Sign up for The GIST and receive the latest college news straight to your inbox three times a week