Freshman pitcher Donny Everett drowns on Thursday

Vanderbilt freshman pitcher Donny Everett drowned in Normandy Lake in Coffee County, Tenn., on Thursday, The Tennessean's Adam Sparks reported on Friday morning.

Everett, a 19-year-old freshman, was pulled from the lake on Thursday night. The Clarksville, Tenn. native had pitched 12 innings for VU as a true freshman, posting 1.50 ERA with 13 strikeouts in 12 innings. Everett missed the first part of the season with an undisclosed ailment.

The heartbreaking news broke the same day that the Commodores are scheduled to face Xavier in a 7 p.m. Central game on Friday night, Vanderbilt's opening game of the Nashville Regional of the NCAA Tournament.

Everett, a highly-touted right-hander who reportedly turned down $2.5 million from Milwaukee to report to Vanderbilt, had hit as high as 98 on the radar gun in his brief stints as a Commodore. He was the Tennessee Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year in 2015.

"The family here is just something you cannot pass up," Everett stated on his biography page on Vanderbilt's official athletics site, VUCommodores.com, in speaking of his decision to forego professional baseball after being drafted in 2015. "The life lessons that coach (Tim) Corbin can teach me, I will always remember. The education is great and will help my life after baseball and the memories I will make will be the best of my life."

Vanderbilt has not issued a press release on Everett's death, nor has it announced whether Friday's game would be postponed.

This is the second time that Corbin has dealt with tragedy in his 13-year tenure as Vanderbilt coach. In April 2012, signee Steven Gant was found dead of a suicide in Linden, Tenn.