No. 25 Draft prospect hits for first MCWS cycle in 68 years
Moore 'speechless' after Tennessee's comeback win, 440-foot wallop
Allison Mast
@allisonmast13In 1956, Elvis Presley took over the pop music charts with a record nine singles in the top 100. ¡°Marty¡± starring Ernest Borgnine, won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The University of Minnesota won its first baseball national championship thanks in part to Jerry Kindall, who hit for the first cycle in Men's College World Series history. After 68 years, that achievement was finally matched when the University of Tennessee¡¯s Christian Moore had a cycle of his own -- with an exclamation point to top it off.
On Friday night, Tennessee faced Florida State in an opening-round matchup between two perennial contenders, neither of whom have won an NCAA championship.
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Moore, the No. 25 Draft prospect, led off the bottom of the first with a triple, his first of the season. He doubled and singled in his next two at-bats, leaving him just a homer short of the cycle four innings into the game. Not one to waste time, the second baseman teed off on a 440-foot long ball in the sixth. It was the third-longest home run in the College World Series since the event moved to Charles Schwab Field (formerly TD Ameritrade Park) in 2011, trailing a pair of roundtrippers from Florida Gator and current Texas Rangers outfielder Wyatt Langford.
The reported 117 mph exit velocity off the bat would rank near the top of the MLB charts in 2024, with only Oneil Cruz, Giancarlo Stanton, Shohei Ohtani and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. having put the ball in play at a higher number.
While the milestone appeared on the national broadcast, Moore remained unaware until he was informed in the dugout.
¡°I was just so locked in, eager to win and trying to get the next at-bat,¡± Moore said during ESPN¡¯s postgame interview. ¡°It was just crazy. I¡¯m super blessed to be in this situation.¡±
Despite the heroic performance, the Volunteers were trailing by three runs entering the bottom of the ninth. Moore chipped in his fifth hit -- and fourth extra-base hit -- of the game, which set a career high. Dylan Dreiling, the No. 72 Draft prospect, dealt the knock-out punch with his fourth hit of the game, a walk-off single, lifting Tennessee to a 12-11 win.
The Vols will face fellow walk-off victors, the North Carolina Tar Heels, in the winner¡¯s bracket on Sunday. But no matter what happens moving forward, it will go down as a career season for Moore. He is batting .385 and slugging .822, both high-water marks for the junior. His mammoth home run was his 33rd of the season (with only No. 2 Draft prospect Charlie Condon having hit more across all of D1), far surpassing the 17 he hit as a sophomore.
¡°It¡¯s surreal. I¡¯m kind of speechless. There¡¯s a lot going on right now -- we just walked it off in Omaha,¡± Moore said following the game. ¡°I¡¯ll soak it all in when I get back to the hotel. But right now, I¡¯m speechless.¡±