Tennessee baseball shortstop Maui Ahuna was not active for the Vols as Florida coasted to a 9-3, series-clinching win in Knoxville on Friday night.
Ahuna was surprisingly absent from the starting lineup, as the transfer junior has started every SEC game at shortstop this season.
Following the Vols loss, head coach Tony Vitello shared that Ahuna is dealing with an injury and was a late scratch ahead of Friday’s matchup.
“From what I know… he’s been kind of fighting some discomfort,” Vitello said. “I mentioned on the television broadcast that there was a play I thought he would make and it was kind of like, ‘oh yeah, he’s not moving as well as he can’ and tonight it kind of reached a breaking point. I don’t know if the weather or the grind of the last few days of him battling through that got to him, but I got word that he was a no-go and needed to switch things on the fly. So, I got to it as fast as I can.”
Specifically, Vitello said Ahuna’s injury has to deal with the “back-side of his body.”
“I don’t want to say back and be wrong,” Vitello said. “But something on the back-side of his body.”
Furthermore, during the mid-game television interview on the SEC Network broadcast, Vitello says Ahuna’s injury was re-aggravated in warmups, leading to the late lineup adjustment.
Tony Vitello says on the SEC Network that Maui Ahuna has been slightly banged up in recent days but then reaggravated it in pregame warm ups.
— Rocky Top Insider (@rockytopinsider) April 8, 2023
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Freshman infielder Jake Kendro got the starting nod at shortstop in what was his third overall start and first SEC start of his career. Kendro received the start over Austen Jaslove, who started the first eight games of the season at shortstop while Ahuna was waiting eligibility clearance.
“It was real quick,” Vitello said on the decision to start Kendro over Jaslove. “He (Kendro) and Jassy (Austen Jaslove) are our two guys that are options in the infield. They can play all three of those positions well and are probably pretty equal in what they do. Kendro has hit righties a little bit better than Jassy in the past so that’s what we looked to do and thought about utilizing Jaslove but was waiting for the right time with a lefty. We’ll see, both of those guys can play those positions. CMo (Christian Moore) can play shortstop. We’ve moved guys around a bunch in scrimmages.”
Kendro did a fine job defensively in his first SEC start but struck out in both of his plate appearances.
There is not specific timetable regarding Ahuna’s return to action, so we’ll see if the former Kansas Jayhawk can give it a go in the series finale on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET in Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
