Cannon Peebles Ejected Against Wake Forest And Will Serve Suspension, What The Umpire Said

With Tennessee putting the final touches on its Knoxville Regional finals victory over Wake Forest, catcher Cannon Peebles made a mistake that will cost the Vols next weekend in the Fayetteville Super Regional.

After striking out in the bottom of the eighth inning, Peebles chirped at Wake Forest catcher Matt Conte. With crew chief Casey Moser already warning both teams earlier in the game, he ejected Peebles from the game for the offense.

“Unsportsmanlike behavior toward the opposing catcher,” Moser told pool reporter Wes Rucker.

The ejection mattered little in the Vols’ 11-5 win over Wake Forest but could prove significant next week. By NCAA rule, Peebles now has to serve a one-game suspension meaning he will be unavailable for game one of Tennessee’s series against Arkansas.

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“The catcher celebrated the strikeout as he should. We are in a regional,” Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello said postgame. “Cannon said something back to him. As he should not. Probably what he said to the catcher is something both dugouts said back and forth to each other the whole night long.

“I have sat in here and I would like to think these kids would say I’ve got their back as much as any coach they have been around. But it was foolish. … Cannon is always going to err on the side of working hard if not working too hard and playing hard if not playing too hard. It was a foolish mistake.”

With Peebles out, redshirt freshman Stone Lawless will start behind the dish in game one. Peebles and Lawless split catching duties for much of the season before the Vols started exclusively rolling with Peebles in weekend series in the LSU series.

Lawless is hitting .304 with five home runs and 20 RBIs in 56 at-bats this season. He hit just .143 with a RBI in 14 SEC at-bats.

Tennessee pitcher Marcus Phillips has familiarity with Lawless and threw to him for much of the season while ace Liam Doyle almost exclusively threw to Peebles this season. Combine that with Doyle throwing twice this weekend and it makes sense for Phillips to start game one and Doyle to start game two.