Taylor Hill Develops Video Game Pitching Power, Leads Vandy Into Super Regional Play

UPDATE: It's Vanderbilt-Oregon State in the Super Regional. Vandy will have a chance to definitively prove that they're better than the Beavers with a best 2-of-3 set coming up.

Taylor Hill set a career high with 13 strikeouts and Vanderbilt beat Belmont for the second time in three days to advance to the Super Regionals in Nashville Sunday night, 6-1.

Hill's gem capped a dominant weekend for the Commodores, who won their four-team bracket by an aggregate 26-3 score over three games. Big performances from the team's rotation of Hill, Sonny Gray, and Grayson Garvin ensured that Vandy wouldn't even be threatened in their first home Regional since 2007. The trio avenged that year's heartbreaking loss to Michigan in the Finals by dominating each team that lined up across from them.

A Jason Esposito double broke open a 1-1 tie in the third inning, and that was all that the team would need to put away a feisty Belmont squad. Espo would finish off the team's scoring with a solo home run in the seventh, his eighth of the season. Sac flies from Conrad Gregor and Curt Casali, along with a clutch double from Anthony Gomez, rounded out the team's scoring.

Mark Lamm worked a scoreless ninth to seal the game for the Commodores. The team led for 22 of their 27 innings in the Regional and trailed only once, 2-1 to Troy on Saturday.

The team will play host once again next week in their Super Regional matchup. It will be the team's third trip and second in a row; last year, the 'Dores lost a tight contest at Florida State that kept the team from making their first-ever appearance in the College World Series. The team will welcome either Oregon State or Georgia to Hawkins Field in series that should set some Vanderbilt baseball attendance records.