Tennessee set to begin SEC Tournament journey as No. 7 seed
The 2023 Tennessee baseball regular season has come and gone and next up is the annual Southeastern Conference Tournament in Hoover, Ala. at the Hoover Metropolitan Complex.
The Vols enter play as a 7-seed after finishing the regular season with a series-win on the road at South Carolina. Its first matchup in the tournament will be against 10-seeded Texas A&M on Tuesday in the second game of the single-elimination round. With a victory, Tennessee would advance on to play 2-seeded Arkansas on Wednesday as the second game of the double-elimination round.
An expected start time for Tennessee and Texas A&M on Tuesday is approximately 1:30 pm ET and it will air on the SEC Network. Tony Vitello’s club concluded the regular season with a 38-18 overall record, including a 16-14 mark in league play. Tennessee ended the regular season winning 15 of its last 19 games and 11 of its final 15 SEC contests.
Tennessee sat at 5-10 in conference play and was coming off a midweek loss to Tennessee Tech back on April 18. Two home runs by Kavares Tears and Dylan Drieling in the bottom of the ninth inning and a walk off long ball in the 12th by Griffin Merritt stole game one over Vanderbilt on April 21, and the season took off from there.
The Vols went on to sweep the Commodores that weekend, swept Mississippi State the following weekend, took two of three against Kentucky at home last weekend and took two of three from South Carolina on the road this past weekend. The only series-loss from that point on was two weeks ago in Athens against Georgia.
All this after suffering series-losses to LSU, Florida and Arkansas the three weeks prior to taking on Vanderbilt at home – the series when it all changed.
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Florida claimed the top-seed in the SEC Tournament and joins No. 2 Arkansas, No. 3 LSU and No. 4 Vanderbilt with first-round byes. The rest of the Tuesday single-elimination slate consists of No. 6 South Carolina vs. No. 11 Georgia, No. 8 Kentucky vs. No. 9 Alabama and No. 5 Auburn and No. 12 Missouri.
Earlier this year, Tennessee swept Texas A&M at Lindsey Nelson Stadium on the weekend of March 24-26. The Aggies finished fifth in the SEC West standings with a 14-16 conference record (32-23 overall) whereas Tennessee tapped out in fifth in the East with a 16-14 conference tally. Texas A&M is coming off a series-win over Mississippi State in Starkville this past weekend.
The Vols entered this past weekend projected as a No. 2 seed in the Morgantown, WVA regional with West Virginia, Notre Dame and Rider – according to D1 Baseball. With a series-win on the road to pickup wins 15 and 16 in conference play, UT has positioned itself firmly into the hosting conversation to be a top-16 national seed. Some wins in Hoover would further solidify that case as the Vols have now jumped up to No. 16 in the current RPI.
Tennessee claimed the 2022 Southeastern Conference Tournament title, knocking off Vanderbilt, LSU, Kentucky and defeated Florida in the championship game. If Tennessee were to run the table once more, it would play in the conference championship game on Sunday at 2 pm ET.
