Tennessee baseball head coach Tony Vitello met with the media following the Vols’ 17-1 run-rule victory over Vanderbilt on Saturday to share his thoughts on the series-clinching victory and more.
In the win, Tennessee second baseman Christian Moore was ejected after exchanging words with Vanderbilt’s Troy LaVene, who aggressively bumped Chase Dollander when running back to first after Blake Burke caught a fly ball.
Moore got in LaVene’s face after the contact, and though Moore never laid hands on LaVene, the umpires ejected Moore, which means he will be suspended for Sunday’s series finale.
“What led up to it was their guy running the bases hard regardless of the score and our guy getting over to cover first base in Doe (Chase Dollander),” Vitello said about the altercation. “I don’t know what Doe said about it, but there was contact. It was, I don’t want to say incidental, but it was two guys playing baseball, man. So, I’ll acknowledge the fact that CMo (Christian Moore) has got a lot of passion, and I’d rather have guys with passion than without. I also will acknowledge the fact that he has got his teammates back. I think that was the intent of what he was doing, but I also think the situation––with all due respect to the team we played and the scoreboard––it wasn’t necessary.”
Vitello also touched on Chase Dollander’s complete game performance, the team’s offensive explosion in the first couple of innings and more.
Vitello’s entire postgame press conference video is below.
