Tennessee baseball completed the weekend sweep of UAlbany on Sunday afternoon, run ruling the Great Danes 12-0 in seven innings at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
Here’s how the Vols got it done against UAlbany in the series finale.
Zander Sechrist The Opener
Tony Vitello gave Zander Sechrist the ball for the second straight Sunday. While the junior left-handed pitcher was more effective than last week his day was just as short. Sechrist kept UAlbany off the scoreboard in two scoreless innings of action.
It would have been interesting to see if Tony Vitello left him in longer if the run rule wasn’t In place as he wanted to get a number of pitchers work but it was a nice bounce back opener performance from Sechrist, allowing just one hit while striking out three batters.
Just like last week, power throwing right-hander Nate Snead relieved Sechrist to start the third inning. The Wichita State transfer was dominant, retiring all eight batters he faced while overpowering Tennessee’s America East foe with his upper-90s fastball.
Kirby Connell made his season debut, inducing a groundout for the final out of the fifth inning before LHP Andrew Behnke came in to replace him in the sixth inning. The sophomore southpaw retired the side in order in the sixth inning.
Freshman Derek Schaefer recorded the game’s final three outs in the seventh inning while allowing one walk . Tennessee pitchers retired 17 straight batters from the first inning until the seventh inning as Albany produced only two baserunners all game.
A Consistent Offensive Performance
Tennessee’s offense has been very boom-or-bust this season, producing a number of massive innings while also struggling to put things together for extended amounts of games.
Tony Vitello said he likes the explosiveness following the Vols’ Saturday win while acknowledging that he’d like to see more consistency throughout games.
Tennessee’s seventh-year head coach got what he wanted on Sunday as the Vols scored runs in six of seven innings including three different one-run innings including two-out RBIs in two of the three.
After not scoring in the first two innings in either of the series’ first two games, Tennessee’s offense got going immediately on Sunday. The Vols scored three first inning runs including a pair on a Dalton Bargo single off the wall in right field.
Then Tennessee got its big inning in the sixth inning as the Vols scored six runs including a Blake Burke RBI single and a Robin Villeneuve two-RBI double.
Tony Vitello Mixes Up His Lineup Again
The only constant with Tennessee baseball’s lineup in the young season has been change. With extreme depth and strong left-handed, right-handed hitting splits, Vitello has a number of options to mix up his lineup.
And Vitello has done just that to this part in the season. Christian Moore, Blake Burke and Billy Amick are the only position players that have been in the starting lineup every day and the Vols have played outfielders at numerous spots.
That continued during Sunday’s series finale when Tennessee started Kavares Tears in center field for the second straight day while simultaneously leaving Hunter Ensley out of the starting lineup for the second straight day.
Robin Villeneuve started in left field while Dalton Bargo started in right field as sophomore Dylan Dreiling got the day off.
Other lineup changes of note included Cal Stark starting behind the plate for the second game this weekend while Dean Curley started for the fourth straight game at shortstop. Curley did exit the game in the fifth inning in a scary moment as he took an 88 MPH fastball off his head.
For the first time this season, Tennessee didn’t completely stagger its lineup with left-handed and right-handed bats the whole way through. With the Vols starting five right-handed, three left-handed and one switch hit bats, Tennessee had back-to-back right-handed batters in the eight and nine holes.
Final Stats
