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Tennessee took Ole Miss by surprise in its, 12-1, series opening victory at Swayze Field Friday night.
“We took them lightly,” Ole Miss RHP Dylan DeLucia said. “It won’t happen again. We will win tomorrow. I’ll tell you that. It’s one of those things where they play in a small field. We have a bigger field, so we thought we could throw it in to them. It didn’t work out. We missed some spots and that’s why they ended up hitting the homers. Tomorrow will be a lot better.”
Tennessee didn’t use the long ball, but still dominated, defeating the top-ranked Rebels, 10-3, to take the series Saturday night.
Ole Miss entered the weekend with what many considered the nation’s best lineup. The Rebels had six starters hitting over .300 entering the weekend.
Chase Burns held them at bay on Friday night and Chase Dollander picked up right where he left off Saturday. The Georgia Southern followed Burns’ lead, striking out the side in the first inning on his way to posting 6.1 scoreless frames.
The tall right-hander dominated Rebels’ batters with his mid-high 90s fastball and sharp breaking ball. Dollander got the breaking ball over for strikes early in at-bats and stayed ahead of batters all night on his way to 10 strikeouts while allowing just three hits and one walk.
An early turning point in the game came in the third inning with UT leading 3-0. The Vols committed back-to-back errors to open the inning, but Burns stranded both runners while throwing 20 strikes and two balls in the inning.
“Just keeping his calm,” Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello said. “It’s not like you can dial it up and throw it any better than you’re throwing when he’s throwing the way that he is but I think you can really subtract from your deal if you add in effort or your frustrated, and we’ve seen that and you don’t have to be a coach to see that. You can see if a kid is a little rattled or perturbed at his defense.”
Tennessee’s offense didn’t go deep Saturday but they put a slow and steady onslaught on the Rebels. The Vols scored in five innings while recording 17 hits.
The Vols opened up a 7-0 lead with a three-run fourth inning thanks to an Evan Russell RBI single and a Seth Stephenson two-out, two-RBI double down the right field line.
“Seth was the spark for us tonight,” Vitello said. “One of his most impressive at-bats was the ball he hit down the right field line after fouling off some really difficult pitches with two strikes.”
Tennessee’s 4-6 hitters — Drew Gilbert, Trey Lipscomb and Jorel Ortega — had huge night, combining to reach base eight times and drove in five runs.
Gilbert earned three hits and a pair of doubles as the junior outfielder continues a dominant season.
The win clinches the weekend series for Tennessee and improves the Vols to 5-0 in SEC play entering Sunday’s series finale. The fifth-ranked Vols have outscored Ole Miss, 22-4, in the first two games of the series.
First pitch for Sunday’s series finale is at 2:30 p.m. ET. The game will be streamed on SEC Network+.
