The Buckeye entered the NCAA Tournament as one of the hottest teams in the field, winning 11 of their last 13 games and clinching the Big Ten Tournament championship to earn the conference's automatic bid to the Big Dance.
The Bucks were hot, but that wasn't enough against the tournament's No. 2 overall seed. Ohio State fell 8-2 to Vanderbilt, dropping its first game of the NCAA Tournament.
The Buckeyes came out swinging from the start. A leadoff double from right fielder Dominic Canzone followed by an RBI single from catcher Dillon Dingler gave Ohio State a 1-0 lead at the top of the first inning, but Vanderbilt punched back quickly with two runs in the bottom half.
Ohio State answered at the top of the inning with a solo homer from first baseman Conner Pohl, but that was the only offense the Buckeyes managed for the remainder of the game.
The Commodores put up two runs in the second thanks to a sac fly and a solo shot to go up 4-2, and they never lost the lead, adding two more runs in the fourth and one in each of the seventh and eighth innings.
The loss puts Ohio State in an elimination game against McNeese on Saturday at 1 p.m. The Buckeyes will need to win that game, and another elimination game on Sunday against the loser of Vanderbilt's game against Indiana State, to make it back to Sunday's regional final – which will feature the winner of the Vanderbilt/Indiana State – in the double-elimination tournament.
