Tennessee baseball has broken its single-season program home run record of 158 long balls. Cal Stark hit his second home run of the game Sunday against Southern Miss to give Tennessee 159 home runs on the season, breaking the 2022 team’s total of 158.
Stark’s homer was Tennessee’s fifth of the night in its 12-3 slaughtering of Southern Miss to sweep the Knoxville Regional. Dean Curley tied the record two innings earlier when he hit a two-run bomb to give the Vols 158 homers on the season.
Stark’s ninth homer of the season marked Tennessee’s 12th of the Knoxville Regional. The blast was a 103 mph, 434-foot three-run nuke to give Tennessee a nine-run lead. Stark’s first homer in Sunday’s game was a 420-foot solo homer.
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The 2022 Tennessee baseball team smashed the former record of 107 home runs held by the 1998 team coached by Rod Delmonico.
Tennessee’s total of 158 blasts in 2022 came in 66 games, when arguably the greatest college baseball team of all-time went 57-9.
This year, the Vols have hit a nation-leading 159 in 64 games. As good and historic as Tennessee’s offense was in 2022, this year’s offense has been better, which is a significant reason the Vols are the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Tennessee is now third all-time with 159 single-season home runs behind LSU’s 1997 team (188) and Alabama’s 1997 team (160).
Third all-time in SEC history. Alabama at 160 and LSU at 188 both in 1997. https://t.co/OyzoIc7dlj
— Teresa Walker 👑 (@TeresaMWalker) June 3, 2024
Six Volunteers have hit double-digit home runs this season. Christian Moore leads the way with 29, Billy Amick follows with 21, Dylan Dreiling is third with 19, Kavares Tears is fourth with 18, Blake Burke is fifth with 17 and Dean Curley is sixth with 11.
Hunter Ensley and Cal Stark are also approaching 10 with nine long balls. Nine Vols hit double-digit homers in 2022. To do that, Reese Chapman or Dalton Bargo (6 homers each) would have to go on a tear to tie the 2022 team.
In 2022, Ethan Payne tied the previous program record with the team’s 107th blast on May 4, 2022, against Alabama A&M in a Tuesday midweek contest. Former Tennessee infielder Logan Steenstra broke the record in the same game, hitting Tennessee’s 108th home run of the season.
