Tony Vitello explains Tennessee's mindset to bounce back from Game 2 loss

Evansville forced a winner-take-all Knoxville Super Regional Final against Tennessee following their 10-8 win over the Vols on Saturday. But through five innings of Game 3 Tennessee has responded in a major way, up 12-1 entering the sixth inning following an offensive onslaught at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.

ESPN’s broadcast crew spoke with Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello during Sunday’s elimination game. Who opened up about the mindset of his team ahead of their game that punches a ticket to the College World Series with a victory.

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“Well the vibe I got from that group was they’re kind of Backyard Baseball style, they’re wanting to play again. Which I don’t know Evansville was on fire, I don’t know how that would have worked out, but that was the vibe I got,” Vitello said regarding his team wanting to play Game 3 immediately on Sunday.

“So I just kind of reminded them with this big gap we have with an 11 a.m. game and a 6 p.m. game. You gotta just relax and wait around until it’s time to filter down to first pitch and I think by now our guys are all mature enough to know what their system is in order to do that. We kind of got our normal game day routines, so you kind of leave it in their hands after that.”

The mindset of the Volunteers clearly paid off as they unleashed a home run derby style of offense against the Purple Aces. Scoring 12 runs off of 12 hits including a whopping seven home runs through five innings. And even though the long ball has been the main attraction for Tennessee, left-handed pitcher Zander Sechrist has also been taking care of business on the mound for the Vols.

“Yeah, he’s competing,” Vitello said. “He took one off the keister there or somewhere on a ball back to him and then we’ve made a couple mistakes behind him. But that’s part of young kid baseball, these guys are younger than they realize they are. So he’s competing which you love.”

Along with allowing just six hits and zero earned runs through six innings along with six strikeouts so far on the night, Sechrist also showed off his toughness after a ball came right back at him early in the game. Representing the second time this postseason that a ball has struck the senior pitcher who is one of the toughest guys on the team according to Vitello.

“He really is. He’s a hockey fan and he’s a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. So those two things combined, I know several people that are both of those and you don’t come across someone that’s not got some toughness if you’re fans of both of those things,” Vitello explained. “You know, he’s not as physical as some of these offensive guys. But like you said, mentality wise it’s exactly what you’re looking for.”

Sechrist will look to hold onto Tennessee’s strong lead that his offense has created as Tennessee is now just a few outs away from making back-to-back College World Series appearances.