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Tennessee players open up on challenge of facing Paul Skenes

Screen Shot 2024-05-28 at 9.09.17 AMby:Kaiden Smith•06/18/23•

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Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports

Tennessee did not start the College World Series the way they planned, falling to LSU 6-3 in their opening game in Omaha.

Dick Howser Trophy winner Paul Skenes was on the mound of the Tigers and dominated, limiting Tennessee’s offense all night. And after the game, Tennessee center fielder Hunter Ensley and designated hitter Griffin Merritt opened up about the challenge of facing Skenes.

“Obviously we were looking for more success,” Ensley said. “I mean, the more success, the more opportunities you have to win a ball game. But we knew coming in, I mean, he has an unreal arm. I thought game prep was really good, all pre-game work was good building up to the game. But, I mean, just wasn’t able to get it done. I thought we had a lot of good at-bats, quality at-bats. Good fight in the box, but just not able to get it done.”

Ensley lead the Tennessee offense with three hits and two RBIs on the day, but their only runs came in the eighth after being held scoreless through the first seven innings by Skenes. Skenes pitched 7.2 innings, giving up just five hits and two runs on the night racking up 12 strikeouts.

He allowed just five hits and had 12 strikeouts as well in their previous matchup in March where the Tigers won 5-2, as he’s given the Volunteers’ hitters problems all season long.

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“Obviously Paul’s really good,” Merritt said. “There’s no other way to put it and he was on his game tonight, and he was executing his game plan. And when you face a guy like that you need a couple of breaks to go your way. I think Hunter talked about it, we hit some balls at guys that when you’re going up against a guy the caliber of Skenes you need those balls to fall. And some of those just hits just didn’t get down for us today.”

There’s definitely no shame in taking a loss to Skenes, as he’s regarded as the best pitcher in college baseball and currently ranked as the No. 2 overall prospect for the 2023 MLB Draft according to MLB.com. And he sure looked like it on Saturday, as his first seven pitches of the game were 100 miles per hour or greater.

Tennessee will look to bounce back and stay in the World Series Monday facing elimination, as they take on Stanford at 2 p.m. ET on ESPN.