Tennessee baseball head coach Tony Vitello met with the media following the Vols’ 18-1 run-rule, series-clinching victory over Hofstra Saturday in Knoxville.
Vitello shared his thoughts on Marcus Phillips’ start, big days at the plate from Levi Clark and Chris Newstrom, how Austin Hunley has developed, Cannon Peebles’ day behind the plate and more.
Watch Vitello’s entire post-game press conference below.
“I thought there was a lot of positives that came from it,” Vitello said referring to the win. “In particular, I thought Hofstra came out with a little extra edge to them… Yesterday is exciting for all college baseball players, and we got the best of them, but they kind of came out with the attitude and the confidence that you know you would want, if you’re a coach, or almost, kind of like they won the game yesterday, which provided for good competition for Marcus.
“So it kind of all starts with that, and there’s a bunch of other positives trickling down to Grim (Blake Grimmer) putting that swing on that one, like his buddy Hunter [High] did last night. But I thought Marcus handled poor weather, good competition, good swings. We didn’t keep two balls in front that we could have when he was pitching. When it was skipping like that, you don’t even have to catch it. You just keep it front. You still got time. But despite all those circumstances, I thought he looked like a different guy than he did 12 months ago. So a real positive there.”
More From RTI: Tony Vitello Reveals Pitching Plan for Hofstra Series Finale
Tennessee will look to sweep the season-opening series on Sunday when the Vols battle Hofstra at 11 a.m. ET on SECN+.
