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WATCH: Luc Lipcius, Tennessee strike first in Super Regional Game 3

Barkley-Truaxby:Barkley Truax•06/12/22•

BarkleyTruax

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Photo by Bryan Lynn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Luc Lipcius has homered for the third time in two games. He took the second pitch he saw over the fence and earned the Tennessee Volunteers the first run of the day, setting the tone early against Notre Dame with both teams’ seasons on the line.

With the home run, Lipcius is now the sole holder of the Tennessee career home run record at 40. Lipcius broke the record yesterday, but teammate Evan Russell broke that record the very same day before Lipcius tied it again and then broke it with his solo homer Sunday.

The winner of this game will face the winner of the Texas and East Carolina Super Regional in the College World Series. Catch the remainder of the Vols battle live on ESPN right now.

Tony Vitello addresses pressure of being one seed amid recent trend of no. 1 seed upsets

When your team wins 50 games before the NCAA Tournament and are considered the best team in college baseball – there’s a massive target on your back. Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello says his team is aware of the immense expectations on his team’s back, but they’ve been taking well to the pressure that comes with being under a national microscope. 

That national spotlight has seemed too bright for other nationally ranked seeds, though. Miami (6), Oklahoma State (7), Florida (13), Maryland (15) and Georgia Southern (16) were all upset in their respective regional tournaments by unseeded opponents. 

“They haven’t given me much to worry about [in terms of outside expectations] this year,” Vitello said about his team handling pressure. “I mean, maybe a couple different things that we’ve talked about as a team and they’re probably in the intangible category, but as far as focusing on outside noise, or extra pressure or anything like that, I think they’ve had the season that they’ve had at this point because … I haven’t seen them get too high or too low.”

Still, that doesn’t mean the Vols are immune to defeat. Tennessee dropped game one of their Super Regional series against Notre Dame 8-6 and marking only the eighth time this season Vitello’s squad has lost a game this season.