Vols aim to 'keep pushing forward' in regional play this weekend

Tennessee baseball had a month to forget heading into the Southeastern Conference Tournament. The Vols had lost five-straight series to end the regular season – and six of the past seven – and were barely holding on in the national rankings.

For a team that was the last Division I program to lose a game after the 20-0 start, that’s a tough pill to swallow. Throw in the fact that you’re the defending national champion – that’s not fun either.   

Tennessee got to work though. The Vols pounded out a season-high 20 hits in the win over Alabama in Hoover on Wednesday and erased an early 4-0 deficit against the top-seeded Longhorns on Thursday to outlast Texas in 12 innings. The two wins were good enough (RPI wise) to bring postseason baseball to Knoxville as the No. 14 national seed.

“I think that they’ve kept pushing forward in the direction you want to. I mean, that’s vague, but there’s a lot of different categories to talk about individuals have gotten better at,” skipper Tony Vitello mentioned Tuesday. “Maybe we’ve (coaching staff) gotten better at learning our team, but the general direction, which is forward and in a positive way, in a way that shows improvement, whether it shows up to you all or ends up on the scoreboard being displayed or not, I don’t know, but just that overall vibe and push forward. Which has made it more enjoyable to come to work each day. It has been a good environment, in particular in pregame.”

Wake Forest, Cincinnati, Miami (OH) will join the Vols in the Knoxville Regional with play getting underway this weekend. The Knoxville Regional is slated opposite of the Fayetteville Regional with host Arkansas as the No. 3 overall seed. The winner of the Knoxville Regional will play the winner of the Fayetteville Regional in super regional play. The winner of the best-of-three-games series will punch a ticket to Omaha for the 2025 College World Series.

But this is a game of failure and things don’t always go as planned (obviously). Something the Vols did well with in Hoover was fighting through adversity. Chaos will ensue in postseason baseball, so Tennessee must continue handling those moments well.

“The one thing they need to take responsibility for — I guess we do too — is as the game goes on with all these crazy ups and downs, and now we’ll be more chaotic than ever for not just us, but every program that’s still got the benefit of playing is, maintain that same sort of energy and outlook,” Vitello continued.

The real-time RPI has Tennessee at No. 11 with a 14-11 record against Quad 1 opponents. Tennessee finished the regular season and conference tournament with 18 wins over league teams and picked up some good momentum in Hoover at the Southeastern Conference Tournament with the wins over Alabama and top-seeded Texas.

First baseman and SEC home run champ Andrew Fischer believes the squad can still grow in terms of being even keeled.

“I feel like our team is has been riding a high and a low and then a high,” the slugger said. “We got to be a little bit more level going in. Even if we win, can’t get up too high. Got to attack the next day the same way.”

Postseason baseball is wild. It’s going to throw teams through hoops and plans will go off script. Throughout the coarse of a regional, right and wrong buttons (both) will be pushed. But the highs and the lows of the SEC has prepared this team to continue doing what it’s head coach has been seeing of late. That’s to keep pushing forward.

“It’ll beat you up, but it’ll also prepare you,” Vitello said of the conference. “So I think our guys can call on a lot of different things that have occurred in the past to help them in the future, but more importantly, present.”

Tennessee will begin play in the Knoxville Regional against Miami (OH) on Friday at 6 PM ET, streaming on ESPN+.