Vandy rides streaky bats to SEC championship game

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HOOVER, Ala. – Vanderbilt is back in the SEC championship game after beating Texas A&M 12-3 in Saturday's semifinal.

The No. 2 seed Commodores will play in Sunday's final (3:30 p.m., ESPN2) against No. 4 seed Florida (43-16), which eliminated No. 1 seed LSU 2-1.

It will be Vanderbilt's eighth appearance in the SEC championship in the past 12 tournament trips, with its only titles coming in 1980 and 2007. Last year's squad was eliminated from the SEC Tournament in just three games before ultimately winning the national championship.

The Commodores (42-18) defeated Texas A&M (45-11) by continuing their streaky hitting from the day before. They got home runs from Will Toffey, Zander Wiel and Dansby Swanson along with a five-run fifth inning to pull away.

Vanderbilt had 10 hits after putting up a season-high 19 hits in Friday's 16-1 win over Alabama.

"We came out hot," said Toffey, who had a double, home run and three runs scored. "We started hitting the ball well (Friday), and it just carried over."

Toffey and Wiel both jumped on starter Andrew Vinson's first pitch for home runs. Toffey, a freshman left-handed batter, sliced one over the left-field wall for a two-run homer in the second.

Wiel turned on Vinson's first delivery for a solo shot with two outs in the third. Later that same inning, Toffey scored on a wild pitch for a 4-1 Vanderbilt lead.

Texas A&M answered in the bottom of the third with two runs on three consecutive hits to cut it to 4-3.

But the Commodores opened it up with five runs in the fifth, taking advantage of two costly errors by the Aggies.

After Rhett Wiseman's leadoff single, Swanson laid down a bunt to relief pitcher Tyler Stubblefield, whose errant throw to first base went down the right-field line. It allowed Wiseman to score and Swanson to reach third.

Wiel's grounder then passed between second baseman Ryne Birk's legs for another error, which scored Swanson. Toffey's double and Jeren Kendall's two-run triple followed to push the lead to 9-3.

"Errors, walks and hard-hit balls. That's tough to defend," Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said of the big inning. "Once you get those three components working for an offense, it makes it very difficult. You could feel the momentum shift."

Swanson's home run to left — his fourth long ball of the tournament — extended the gap to 11-3 in the sixth.

Vanderbilt starting pitcher Walker Buehler gave up three runs in four innings, but John Kilichowski (3-3) was sharp in relief, tossing five innings of no-hit ball.

"The momentum stopped for Texas A&M when John Kilichowski came in the game," Corbin said. "He faced 15 hitters, got all of them out and pitched extremely well. You could see at that point, things were headed in the right direction."

Reach Adam Sparks at 615-259-8010 and on Twitter @AdamSparks.