OMAHA — Now comes the really hard part for Vanderbilt.
The Commodores extended their first appearance at the College World Series with a 5-1 victory over North Carolina on Wednesday night.
Their reward is another game against Southeastern Conference rival Florida, which has beaten them in four of five meetings this season.
“We’re not thinking, ‘How the heck can we beat Florida?’ It’s not really in the back of our minds at all,” outfielder Connor Harrell said. “We feel we match up with them well, but we’ll see what happens on Friday.”
Taylor Hill (6-1) and Corey Williams combined on a four-hitter and Harrell and Curt Casali homered for the Commodores (54-11), who led 5-0 in the third inning.
Vanderbilt, which lost 3-1 to Florida on Tuesday, would need to beat the Gators on Friday and again Saturday to reach next week’s best-of-three finals.
North Carolina (51-16) left nine runners on base for the second straight game and stranded a total of 34 in its three CWS games. The Tar Heels were just 7-for-39 with runners in scoring position.
“That’s probably what will be written about,” North Carolina coach Mike Fox said. “We left a lot of people on base out here for three games, but a lot of that has to do with the other team, and we were facing some pretty good arms. It didn’t happen for us.”
