Tennessee baseball opened up its national championship defense with a successful weekend where the Vols’ swept Hofstra at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
Tony Vitello’s eighth Tennessee team run-ruled Hofstra in all three games and combined to outscore the Pride 46-2 in 21 innings of baseball.
On the mound, Ole Miss transfer Liam Doyle opened the weekend with an absolute bang. He struck out eight of the first nine batters he faced and finished his first start of the season allowing just one baserunner while striking out 11 batters in five innings of action.
A number of other Vol pitchers had strong weekends including Marcus Phillips, Tanner Franklin, Brandon Arvidson and Ryan Combs.
At the plate, Tennessee had a strong weekend top-to-bottom. The Vols started 12 different players at the plate with Dean Curley, Gavin Kilen and Hunter Ensley leading the way from the top of the order. But the story of the weekend for Tennessee at the plate was the performance of a number of freshmen.
Manny Marin, Levi Clark and Chris Newstrom all had big weekends at the plate while earning starts and Jay Abernathy was solid off the bench. Those four combined to hit 10-of-16 at the plate with three extra-base hits, nine RBIs and three walks.
After a strong first week of the season, Tennessee baseball had little movement in the rankings this week. Check out where they landed in a number of rankings below.
More From RTI: Everything Tony Vitello Said After Tennessee Baseball Completed Sweep Of Hofstra
D1Baseball
- This week: No. 4
- Last week: No. 4
Baseball America
- This week: No. 3
- Last week: No. 3
USA Today Coaches Poll
- This week: No new ranking
- Last week: No. 2
Perfect Game
- This week: 5
- Last week: No. 5
NCBWA
- This week: N/A
- Last week: No. 2
