NCAAM 2/26 Recap: #17 Tennessee Brings Down #3 Auburn 67-62
Tennessee baseball completed one of the program’s most dominant weekends, out scoring Iona 68-3 in the series sweep.
The Vols broke their program record for most runs in a three-game series as all 18 position players on the active roster recorded hits with 14 of them driving in at least one run.
“More than anything it was fun to watch the guys cheer each other on,” Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello said. “They made it so easy on us as coaches the first two days to almost play — I don’t know if chess is the right deal — but put all the pieces where we wanted and you felt really good at the end of both games. Today, we weren’t able to play a full nine innings and you weren’t sure if that’s going to be the case, so we made a couple mistakes on the bases and lost a couple at-bats, but as close to — it’s never going to be a perfect weekend — but a lot of good stuff from this weekend.”
As dominant as Tennessee’s bats were against the Gaels, the Vols’ pitching was nearly as dominant. Iona scored just three runs in only two innings over the weekend.
Tennessee’s starting pitchers combined for 13.1 innings pitched, allowing zero earned runs, seven hits and two walks while striking out 18 batters.
Despite the busy weekend of baseball, Vitello made it court side at Thompson-Boling Arena for the second half of the Vols’ victory over No. 3 Auburn.
The head baseball coach was rocking a Zakai Zeigler t-shirt jersey while bringing the energy.
“He’s not in it to make friends,” Vitello said of why he’s a Zeigler fan. “He’s out there to win. I’m a fan of the whole group to be honest with you. You probably saw some of that yesterday, but he’s one of many that coach Barnes gets to play the right way and I think that guy, obviously the fans draw to him because he’s not huge in stature, but he has the whole big heart going on out on the court. Something that every college athlete in my opinion should emulate.”
Vitello also discussed Jared Dickey’s big weekend, Tuesday’s matchup with ETSU and more.
