Tennessee baseball is moving up the rankings after improving to 7-0 to start the season. The Vols followed up their season opening weekend sweep of Hofstra with a midweek win over UNC Asheville and a series sweep of Samford.
Samford gave Tennessee a much more competitive series at Lindsey Nelson Stadium compared to Hofstra and the lone matchup against UNC Asheville.
Tennessee leaned on dominant pitching from Liam Doyle and Tanner Franklin to win game one 5-1 before an eighth inning Levi Clark grand slam propelled the Vols to a game two victory. Samford ran out of pitching and Tennessee ran-rule the Bulldogs’ 11-1 to complete the series sweep on Sunday.
Doyle dominance has led the way for a pitching staff banged up to open the season while Marcus Phillips has grabbed the reigns of the Saturday starting job. At the plate, there’s no shortage of Tennessee players impressing including a freshman quartet of Levi Clark, Jay Abernathy, Manny Marin and Chris Newstrom.
Reese Chapman also had a big weekend for Tennessee. The junior right fielder hit five-for-nine with a double and a solo home run.
The challenge gets much more difficult for Tennessee this weekend as the Vols face Oklahoma State, Rice and Arizona in the Astros College Classic in Houston.
But after a few top teams dropped their first game of the season the last week. Those losses led to Tennessee moving up in the rankings. Here’s where they landed.
More From RTI: Tennessee Baseball Notebook — Takeaways From The Vols’ First Seven Games
D1Baseball
- This week: No. 3
- Last week: No. 4
Baseball America
- This week: No. 2
- Last week: No. 3
USA Today Coaches Poll
- This week: No. 1
- Last week: No. 2
Perfect Game
- This week: No. 4
- Last week: No. 5
NCBWA
- This week: N/A
- Last week: No. 2
