Tennessee baseball sweeps defending national champions
Tennessee baseball earned its first SEC series sweep of the season over the weekend. The Vols swept the defending national champions, the LSU Tigers. The Vols didn't see an explosive hitting performance or run rule against the Tigers like they have in the past, but that wasn't needed to sweep the defending national champions.
The Vols won the Friday night matchup 6-3 behind a stellar 4.2 innings pitched with no runs allowed by AJ Causey after Chris Stamos struggled out of the gate. The Vols jumped out to an early 1st inning lead off a Billy Amick two-run home run and didn't look back.
Saturday's matchup was another pitcher's dual between Tennessee's Drew Beam and LSU's Luke Holman. Both starters allowed three combined runs over their seven innings on the mound. Late-game hitting performances from Dylan Dreiling and an 8th-inning home run from Billy Amick lifted the Vols over LSU 3-1.
The Vols won the series on Saturday but weren't done on Sunday. Tennessee scored eight runs on Sunday, the most in the series, and that was plenty for the Vols to clinch the 8-4 win and series sweep.
Blake Burke started things off for the Vols with a home run in the 3rd inning. The Vols opened things up in the 7th inning with Christian Moore hitting his second home run of the day. He gave the Vols a 3-2 lead in the 6th inning with a solo home run and gave Tennessee pitchers some insurance in the 7th with a three-run home run.
Moore also caught Burke with 42 career home runs at Tennessee. Now, with a little over one month remaining in the regular season, they both sit tied at the top of the Tennessee record books.
With the Sunday win, Tennessee also won its tenth SEC game to improve to 10-5 in conference play. That gives the Vols the fourth-best conference record and keeps them in second place in the East, behind Kentucky, which has been rolling since the start of conference play.
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The Wildcats are 13-1 against SEC opponents and will be the Vols' next conference opponent. Tennessee will travel to Lexington to play the Wildcats next weekend for a three-game series against the hottest team in the country.