Tennessee baseball hosts Evansville this weekend at Lindsey Nelson Stadium for the Knoxville Super Regional. The Vols are two wins away from returning to the College World Series for the third time in four seasons.
The Vols are the top-seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament while Evansville is a four-seed Cinderella story who won the Greenville Regional last weekend.
The stakes are incredibly high. Here’s everything to know about this weekend’s Knoxville Super Regional.
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How To Watch — No. 1 Tennessee (53-11, 22-8 SEC) vs Evansville (38-24, 17-10 MVC)
Game One
- 3 p.m. ET
- Watch: ESPN2
- Stream Link
- PxP: Clay Matvick, CC: Gregg Olson
Game Two
- 11 a.m. ET
- Watch: ESPN2
- Stream Link
- PxP: Clay Matvick, CC: Gregg Olson
Game Three (if needed)
- 6 p.m. ET
- Watch: ESPNU
- Stream Link
- PxP: Clay Matvick, CC: Gregg Olson
What Tennessee HC Tony Vitello Said About Evansville
On what he has seen from Evansville while scouting the Aces
“They’re an older team. Certainly can swing the bat well. And those two things kind of go hand in hand. They’ve got a lot of players that have been there for a while and have accumulated some reps. And then also pitching, it kind of starts with their lefty, was conference pitcher of the year as a freshman. And they’ve leaned on their closer, who has got a real good breaking ball, a lot. So there’s a lot of pieces there. Center fielder can run down a ball as good as anybody. There’s a lot of pieces there that are similar to the good teams in our league.
And the one way they’ve done it, I’ve known Wes or Coach Carroll for a long time. He’s always been real good at kind of running around beating the bushes and finding guys that he knows are going to develop into something even better than they already are. And so that’s kind of been the makeup of that team is there’s a lot of guys who have developed and become even better than they are and all together. It makes for a really good team.”
On if Evansville reminds him of any SEC teams Tennessee faced this season
“A little bit of Kentucky with the well-balanced offense. They play with a real fun style. I think that’s kind of one thing that gets lost in the mix. These game times, ESPN is, I assume, the one that has to juggle (the game times), there’s only so many slots. And you got (Florida star Jac) Caglianone and you got these guys, so where are you going put everybody? But I think the one thing in my conversations yesterday, I kept reminding people their style of play is fun. They’re very confident, they get after it and play hard. So on top of the talent that’s there, they got a style of play too that makes them, maybe, the sum better than the parts. And I think that’s something that was entertaining for the folks that were out east watching their regional, which was highly competitive. And then again, something that’s kind of been their engine to help them go. So off the bat, just kind of that (Kentucky) team would be one that sticks out. I’m sure there’s other similarities in certain categories.”
On his message to this team and they prepare to face a No. 4 seed who is perceived as an underdog
“Yeah, fortunately that noise doesn’t get to me. Like I said, at this point the seeding doesn’t matter. You’re either good enough to be at this spot or you’re not and you don’t get any extra credit. We’re not alternating sites. You don’t get to be home team the whole weekend. It’s whether you’re on your field or not. So that’s the benefit we see as it relates to the matchup. But they know what a hostile environment looks like from where they just came from. That’s one of the more fun, you know, environments (East Carolina) really in all of college baseball.
“And then to me, I’m just ready to get on and play a series. ‘Cause last week it was the opposite. What about being a this seed or that seed for us? And you know, again, to me now that the regionals are over where you slate 1, 2, 3, 4, they don’t matter. At the start of the tournament, you actually, I think 75% are the top eight. So to me you either wanna be in the top 16, it’s a little better to be in the top eight by percentage and then after that you can throw the rest of it out the windows from what I think. Those regionals are not about let’s get the very best with the, you know, bottom and things like that. It’s the regionals and it’s based off travel and things like that. But they went to a very tough place and beat an extremely well-coached team along with, you know, beating another team that is pretty dang good too.”
