Tennessee baseball sweeps No. 1 Ole Miss: Three takeaways

Talk about a statement series! Tennessee baseball traveled to Oxford, Miss., to take on an Ole Miss Rebels team ranked No. 1 in the D1Baseball.com and Baseball America top 25 rankings and anywhere from No. 8 to No. 1 depending on the service you go by. The Vols swept them.

Tony Vitello’s team, ranked anywhere from No. 5 to No. 2 dominated Friday and Saturday, winning 12-1 and 10-3 respectively. They won Sunday 4-3. Ole Miss never led in any game. A six-run second inning put them ahead Friday, and they scored two runs in the first Saturday. Three runs in the fourth put them up Sunday.

Ole Miss did make it a game Sunday in the eighth with a three-run shot from Hayden Dunhurst. Then in they had the go-ahead run on in that inning and the winning run on in the ninth. Redmond Walsh struck out five to close it out, though.

Rocky Top improves to 23-1 and 6-0 in SEC play with a visit from the Western Carolina Catamounts set for Wednesday. Next weekend, though, they have another huge series to likely determine who will be No. 1 when they visit the Vanderbilt Commodores.

Ole Miss is 16-7 and 2-4 in the SEC with a visit from the North Alabama Lions set for Tuesday before visiting the Kentucky Wildcats next weekend. Here are three things we learned from Tennessee baseball’s dominating weekend.

1. Offense scored in every way possible.

Home runs have been the story for the Vols this year, and on Friday, they didn’t disappoint there. UT scored eight of its 12 runs from five homers that day. Jared Dickey had two, and Blake Burke, Trey Lipscomb and Luc Lipcius all went long. However, this team actually proved it can score in any way the rest of the weekend with no homers Saturday or Sunday.

They had six doubles Saturday, including two by Drew Gilbert and one by Lipscomb, Seth Stephenson, Jorel Ortega and Logan Steenstra. Stephenson also stole two bases that day while Dickey, Lipcius and Evan Russell all stole one. Cortland Lawson had a sacrifice bunt, and Dickey had a sac fly that drove in a run.

So we’re talking doubles, sacrifice plays, stolen bases and home runs to score. Well, there were also triples. Lawson drove in three with a triple on Friday. Drew Gilbert drove in two with a triple Sunday, which made the difference in the game. Lipscomb had a ground-out to drive in Gilbert, and Lipcius drove in Lipscomb with another double. Simply put, they did it all.

2. Pitching didn’t allow balls in play.

Chase Burns got the start Sunday and struck out 11 batters while allowing just two hits and a run in seven innings. Mark McLaughlin then struck out two, and Kirby Connell added another in the ninth. On Saturday, Chase Dollander struck out 10 in over six innings and allowed no runs. Will Mabrey struck out one, and Ben Joyce and Wyatt Evans each struck out two.

Drew Beam only struck out six in seven innings with one earned run Sunday. Ole Miss cut a 4-0 lead to 4-3 in the seventh after a rough stretch from Camden Sewell. Redmond Walsh then came in and struck out five batters over the next two innings to get the save, causing Ole Miss to leave four men stranded. That was crucial. Dollander and Burns pitched 138 strikes on 187 pitches.

3. Defense was a real problem.

Pitching and offense bailed this part out. However, the Vols did commit six errors over the weekend. They finished with a fielding percentage of .941, which is abysmal. Lawson had two, and Dickey, Lipscomb and Lipscius all came away with one. It’s amazing they got away with that against a team like Ole Miss.

However, the worst came Sunday. In the bottom of the ninth, up 4-3 with two outs and one on, Ortega mishandled a ground-ball that should have brought about the third out. It put the winning run on. Walsh bailed him out with a strikeout on the next at-bad to secure the win for Tennessee baseball, but this almost proved costly.