Tennessee baseball knocked off Belmont 9-4 on Tuesday night at Lindsey Nelson Stadium behind a big Senior Night game from Hunter Ensley.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello discussed Ensley, pitching plans for this weekend and much more. Here’s everything Vitello said.
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On honoring Hunter Ensley on Senior Day
“It’s great for him. Obviously we got Colby to go in the game for him. I mean, Colby is a senior too he just has a year of eligibility left for extenuating circumstances. Alberto is a senior too. I don’t know what his future holds or how that will go down next year. We’ve tried to get creative and do something with him but it wasn’t going to work within the rules. My idea, people probably would have lost their minds. I found out last night at dinner that there’s been teams in our league complaining that he takes in-and-out with us. Which I can’t even really fathom or comprehend that statement. But regardless, those two guys are equally special kids but it’s tough to equal Hunter’s tenure here. And obviously we have more season to go but it was a day of recognizing him. I thought our people did a great job. Danny (White) is incredibly busy. Especially, there’s a lot of rules in limbo and things like that so he didn’t necessarily have to come over but he went out of his way to come over. So even just down to those details it was special for Hunter.
Hitting a home run ain’t easy. And I know we had more game to play there. We take him out of the game. No one’s going to get made fun of more in the country tonight if we lose that game after he comes out that early. But if I was Hunter, I would want my last at-bat to be a homer. At the very least regular season at-bat here. And if you had asked him if he wants to come out of the game, he’s not coming out of the game. We just decided, as a coaching staff to do that.”
On Ensley saying he took a momentum to take it in running off the field, why that was important
“He’s such a low maintenance kid and such an unselfish kid. If you had asked me before the game, I would have said, it’s not that important. And I was surprised that he did take his time, but because he took his time it allowed all of us to watch and think about it, and he was very smart. It’s Hunter to a tee, because he’s a winner, and everything he does is not irrational, for as competitive as he is, and some of us get a little too fired up. He’s calculated, and the fact he took his time and calculated that moment and enjoyed that moment, I think was the smart thing to do. It was a special thing for him to do, and it kind of put it into perspective all of us standing there in the dugout that there’s a lot of time out on that turf that he has put in, and it was his dream to play here, and he lived out that dream. I think there’s a lot of people that should be envious. I am.”
On if there’s an early moment during Hunter Ensley’s career than he realized Ensley was a winner
“I thought you were going to say something else. We could go down the negative road, but we’ll stay down the positive, stay on the positive train. I think a deal with Hunter, with him and Drew Gilbert both alike, our other coaches that hit fun goes to the outfielders have whispered to each other like, ‘He’s kind of reached the same status as Drew. We have to stop hitting the ball anywhere near the wall, because whether it’s practice or BP (batting practice), he treats everything the same, and the guy’s going to end up running through the wall. He might hurt our wall more than he hurts himself.’ In practice moments, that was a conversation we had, and you kind of knew that was going to be the deal.
“But the defining moment for him, really, was in 2023. We didn’t think we had enough toughness as a team and maybe as coaches, we should have evaluated our talent and known he was the center fielder from day one. But if we date back, you guys were questioning ‘Who’s going to be the next center fielder? Who’s going to replace Drew Gilbert?’ And we didn’t have a definitive answer, but we were in need of more toughness than we were a center fielder at that moment that he became the guy, and he’s been that guy ever since.”
On the player Hunter Ensley has become and thinking back to his first practice
“The respect level the other guys have for him in the dugout has completely changed. Before, he’s a tadpole trying to make his way and make a name for himself and show that he belongs here, but he was a guy who didn’t, he didn’t even present himself the best way he could because he had a football injury. And he didn’t even know it was there. I mean, he probably knew there was some soreness and stuff, but it affected his throwing and affected the rest of his game.
“So, it was a lot of trials and tribulations at the beginning, and part of it is the root of who he is. He’s a tough kid, and he was that on the football field, so it kind of stunted his growth a little bit right out of the chute. I don’t mean to speak for him, I’m willing to bet from this day in reverse, I don’t know that he’d want to do it any differently. I think there’s a couple mistakes he made along the way, not many of them, some ones we have fun with now, but I don’t know that he would want to do it any differently. And I don’t know that I would want anything different from my end.”
On if he’s decided whether or not Liam Doyle will move up a day with the Thursday–Saturday series
“No. Actually, he’s in there eating with Frank (Anderson). I tried to have a, believe it or not, mature conversation, and those two guys were acting a fool in there. So I said, ‘Let me finish this stuff (press conference), and we’ll get back in there and visit.’ My only concern for Liam in general is just, we’ve asked him to do a lot with the Friday (Auburn)], the Sunday (Auburn), and then 100 pitches Friday (Vanderbilt) despite the hand starting to get bloody and things like that.
Again, you want to talk about not wanting to do things over again? I would never want to redo things to where we don’t get a year around Liam Doyle, but it is only a year. Whoever drafts him is going to get him for a long time, unless they decide to trade him or free agent steal or something like that. So, I’m no patron saint, but I want to look out for him a little bit.”
On where he’s at with Marcus Phillips and his message to him going into the weekend
“To pitch as confidently as he has at times. I think confidence is a choice, and there’s been times where he’s clearly competing, but there’s times where Q (Quentin Eberhardt) will nudge him about it more than I will, but you can see self belief at times. To believe in himself. I don’t know what the standings are, but I know Florida is playing better than they were here record-wise, but that lineup’s really good, and he was, they weren’t going to score off him that day. The last time we were on the road, if I’m not mistaken, he helped salvage a weekend that could have been miserable. If he chooses to look back on his highlights in his own mind and call upon that for confidence, that’s fine, but he doesn’t need to do that. He just needs to have the self belief that he has earned at this point. And you know he’s going to go out there and compete.”
On if he plans on starting Tennessee freshman RHP Tegan Kuhns in the series finale:
“I think so. I mean, I always watch Dana White’s press conference because I like UFC and he always tells ‘em, ‘I’m not going to make’ — they’ll ask them who’s fighting next — ‘but I ain’t making decisions now,’ and so I kind of usually use that cop out. But yeah, I think we’d have to come up with something pretty creative to not do that. And I don’t mind — I say all this stuff to the team too much, and I say it to you all and I think it ends up blowing up in my face a little bit, but I don’t mind having conversations about decisions and stuff like that. And you know, if you look back on Sunday, you could argue, or Tegan, if he was not a great teammate, could say, ‘Hey, you took me out too early.’ But last Sunday lined up exactly the way we wanted it. We just made a few too many mistakes and didn’t score enough to cover up those mistakes. But Tegan threw the ball great the last two times out. I think if anything, the argument is, you know, to let him ride a little bit, but you know, you don’t want to say that to yourself and box yourself in because you don’t know what’s going to be going on, more than likely day three of the series, for him.”
On if he has liked the quality of at-bats from Tennessee while it has struggled with runners in scoring position of late
“Some of them, not all. I mean, you can’t swing like a caveman in that moment, and it’s understandable. So the deal can work two different ways. The home crowd is fired up. You can let that adrenaline, or you could be on the road, or there could be nobody in the stands because of the rain, and just the moment can get you too fired up. So that would be — we could dissect a bunch of them. Fortunately, we’re on the winning end tonight, so there’s nothing that stings to where you’d say this or that. But I think at the very least, you don’t want a guy that’s too fired up. It’s not football, unfortunately. So you got to find a way to slow down the moment a little bit and just be who you are. Be true to yourself. So I’d like to see that.
“And then also, by now, they’ve got it. We’ve got it. There’s so much information on these pitchers. You don’t need to change your swing or who you are, but based off the situation, or the guy you’re facing, there does need to be a little bit of an approach. So those would be if it was Christmas, my two wish list for our guys to take a deep breath and say, this is who I am. I’m Josh Elander, or I’m Luke Bonfield, or this is who I am and who I’m going to be in the box. And then this is the situation, so this is the approach I need to have, and then just invest in that. And sometimes it’ll work out and sometimes it won’t. That’s sports, that’s competition, and that’s the SEC. Now cut that and it’s a commercial.”
On what stands about this year’s Arkansas team, going back to Fayetteville
“It’ll be loud. Good baseball fans that know the game, but also they’ll be loud. It’ll be a different style of loud. I mean, everyone by now knows the trip to Oxford had a unique flavor to it this year. And then, you know, a couple other places we went where it was really loud, and then they’ll be well coached. They’re going to play hard, and he (Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn) knows what he’s doing on gameday. You know, history speaks to that for obvious reasons, and I don’t know quite where they’re at, but they’re probably ranked higher than us, and have a better record, and it’s probably because they also have good players on top of the good coaches.
“So I think, and maybe I’m wrong. If anything, it’s nice, I don’t think I’ve recruited any of those guys. I mean, we lost a big game there, and some of the parents, it just was a weird flavor there for a few years of that. And same with University of Missouri, and now I think it’s on the field, in the stadium. I think enough time has passed and then the flip end of that is, I think those relationships, just because time has gone on, have grown, believe it or not, behind the scenes. They’ve grown even stronger. And I think there’s a real appreciation there, at least from my end.”
