Tennessee baseball is heading on the road for the second straight weekend. After winning the Clemson Regional in the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament, the Vols are headed to Hattiesburg to face Southern Miss in the super regionals.
The best of three series begins Saturday, June 10 at 3 p.m. ET and will continue through Sunday if needed.
Since both teams were two-seeds in their respective regions the NCAA Tournament selection committee made the decision on who would host the super regional.
“The committee will make a determination of that when the situation comes up and the site would be announced Tuesday morning,” NCAA Media representative Jeff Williams said of the criteria in a statement. “Since there is no true seeding of #2s, it would largely just be looking at the merits of the two bids (venue, hotels, guarantees, etc.) but it would be a full committee decision.”
Southern Miss’ ability to add extra seats to Pete Taylor Field could have been a deciding factor. The Golden Eagles had 5,500 fans at the Hattiesburg Super Regional last season while Tennessee hosted 4,500 fans to Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
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When comparing the Tennessee and Southern Miss’ resume, the Vols have a clear — albeit small — advantage. Tennessee ranks No. 12 in RPI compared to Southern Miss’ No. 18 RPI. The Vols rank 25 spots higher in strength of schedule and came out of the No. 4 overall seed’s (Clemson) regional compared to Southern Miss’ winning the No. 13 overall seed’s (Auburn) regional.
It was an impressive week for the Golden Eagles at Auburn. Southern Miss dropped its regional opener before reeling off four straight wins to advance to the super regionals for the third time in program history.
Southern Miss is 45-18 (22-8 Sun Belt) finishing second in its conference in the regular season before winning the conference tournament to earn the Sun Belt’s automatic bid.
Tennessee has to go on the road to face a strong team but the Vols are still just two wins away from their second trip to the College World Series in three years. First pitch for the weekend series is at 3 p.m. ET Saturday.
2 Responses
ESPN must’ve been the driving force behind the committee’s decision to hold the Super in Hattiesburg as there’s no way it shouldn’t have been in Knoxville instead of Southern Miss.
Imagine that….ESPN would rather be in Hattiesburg than Knoxville. My personal theory is that the NCAA doesn’t like that jerk coach for the Vols.