Commodores take home first national championship

John Norwood takes off with the crowd going crazy. (Vanderbilt)

A solo home run in the top of the eighth by John Norwood clinched the Vanderbilt Commodores first ever national championship with a 3-2 win over Virginia. Second basemen Darby Swanson was named the College World Series Most Outstanding Player as the Commodores bounced back from losing Game 2 to pick up the win.

Norwood crushed a 1-0 pitch on a line over the left field fence, dropping into the bullpen for the first Vanderbilt home run in the CWS.

"I thought it was gone, but you never know in this park," Norwood said. "I was just hoping it went out, and if it didn't, I knew my teammates would pick me up. It's a home run, but it's also a team effort to get here. We were confident the entire year."

The junior outfielder was greeted at the plate by the entire team after he took a high pitch up in the zone from Virginia reliever Nick Howard and deposited it into the Commodores bullpen.

"You've got to give credit to (John) Norwood," Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said. "The pitch was up in the zone and he took an aggressive swing and hit the ball out."

Commodore starter Carson Fulmer was almost unhittable over five plus innings of work as he gave up two runs, just one of which was earned. He struck out five and combined with reliever Hayden Stone, who threw two innings get the win.

Fulmer had began to tire in the sixth so he was pulled after giving up a one-out RBI single to Daniel Pinero. Stone entered and loaded the bases with two outs before Vince Conde dropped a lineout to score the game-tying run.

Vanderbilt had scored twice already as Darby Swanson's smart heads-up baserunning brought him around in the top of the first. He moved to second on a pop up to the third basemen before stealing third and coming home on a double steal when Cavalier catcher Robbie Coman's throw sailed into center field.

The Commodores added another run in the top half of the sixth behind more aggressive baserunning. Norwood grounded a ball to third that he would've beat out but a error from Kenny Towns moved him to second. He moved to third on a groundout and came around to score on a Conde RBI single.

Virginia looked like the better team in the second game, but Vanderbilt bookended the series with narrow wins and came away with their first national championship in school history. It was the fourth SEC title in the last five years and the Cavaliers couldn't win the first ACC title since 1955.

As a side note, Commodore pitcher Brian Miller proposed to his girlfriend after the game, and she said yes. Miller had thrown 7 1/3 innings of relief in last Friday's loss to Texas.