Tony Vitello has Tennessee Baseball on an unprecedented run
Sunday afternoon seemed like business as usual for Tennessee Baseball. The Vols got a go-ahead three-run home run from Billy Amick and a bullpen-by-committee pitching plan made the runs stand up in a 4-3 win over LSU in the SEC Tournament championship game.
There wasn’t that much hoopla on Monday, either, when Tennessee was the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Baseball Tournament, with the Vols (50-11) face Northern Kentucky (35-22) in the Knoxville Regional on Friday (7 p.m. Eastern Time, SEC Network) at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
After all, Tennessee has won two of the last three SEC Tournament championships. The Vols been the No. 1 overall seed two times in the last three seasons, too.
Tennessee has won 50 games in three of the last four seasons
That’s the kind of unprecedented run Tony Vitello has Tennessee on over the last four seasons.
The win over LSU Sunday was the 50th of the season, giving the Vols at least 50 wins for the third time in four seasons, after they won 57 in 2022 and 50 in 2021.
No other team college baseball has done that over the same span. Before Vitello, it had only happened twice in program history. Tennessee won 52 games in 1994 and 54 in 1995.
The two most recent 50-win seasons included both SEC regular-season championships and SEC Tournament championships, this season and in 2022.
Before Vitello arrived, Tennessee had won only three SEC Tournaments (1993, 1994 and 1995). The Vols had won only three regular-season championships before Vitello, doing so in 1951, 1994 and 1995.
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Vols are the No. 1 seed in NCAA Baseball Tournament for second time in three years
Making the NCAA Tournament is nothing to take for granted, either, not to mention hosting regionals or super regionals.
Tennessee went 14 years between appearances in the NCAA postseason, a with Vitello snapping that streak in 2019. Before the Vols were the No. 2 seed in the Chapel Hill Regional that season, Tennessee hadn’t played an NCAA Tournament game since June 19, 2005.
Before Vitello, nine Tennessee Baseball teams made the NCAA Tournament. Vitello has now led the Vols there five times, with three trips to Super Regionals and two trips to the College World Series in Omaha.
Tennessee advanced out of the Clemson Regional a year ago, then won at Southern Miss in three games in Super Regional play to get back to Omaha. The Vols beat Stanford in their second game, the program’s first win at the College World Series since 2001.
Lindsey Nelson Stadium hosted Regional and Super Regional play in 2021 and 2022, with Tennessee advancing to Omaha with a Super Regional win over LSU before getting upset by Notre Dame a year later.
