Tennessee baseball clinched the series victory over UAlbany with a dominant 21-6 win over the Great Danes on Saturday afternoon.
The Vols are looking to complete the series sweep on Sunday afternoon, but who will get the start?
“Zander [Sechrist] will most likely start,” Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said postgame. “I haven’t told him that, but just giving you an honest answer. We’ll probably use him.”
Sechrist started the Vols weekend finale at the Shriners Children’s College Classic last weekend where he allowed four hits and three runs in two innings of action against Baylor.
The senior left-handed pitcher has been Tennessee’s midweek starter each of the last two seasons where he posted a 1.67 and 2.05 ERA respectively. If Sechrist ends up not starting for the Vols, they’ll likely turn to Wichita State transfer Nate Snead.
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Vitello also listed a number of bullpen arms who will likely see action for Tennessee in the series finale.
“We’ll definitely use [Nate] Snead,” Vitello said. “We had Snead about ready to go in this game. Circumstances changed a little bit, but Snead and [Marcus] Phillips are ready to go, and [Andrew] Behnke is a guy we need to get in the game tomorrow. And even though [Derek] Schaefer and [Matthew] Dallas started during the midweek, both of those guys should be ready. We feel good about having everybody we can to throw at those guys.”
Snead relieved Sechrist last week against Baylor and walked five batters and allowed two runs while striking out four in an important five innings of relief.
Phillips hasn’t allowed a run in 1.1 innings of relief so far this season including 0.1 innings last Saturday. Behnke allowed four hits and one run in 2.2 innings of relief against UNC-Asheville on Wednesday.
First pitch between the Vols and Great Danes is at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday afternoon. SEC Network+ is streaming the game.
