Tennessee entered the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament Wednesday afternoon seeking to reverse its late-season skid.
A 20-hit barrage did the trick.
The eighth-seeded Volunteers racked up their season high in hits and needed most of them to eliminate ninth-seeded Alabama 15-10 in a second-round game at Hoover Met Stadium near Birmingham. Tennessee, which lost its final five regular-season series within the league, will now face top-seeded Texas, with Thursday’s first pitch scheduled for 4 p.m. Eastern on the SEC Network.
“The energy and the vibe was good all day long, even after we made some mistakes, and we made a bunch,” Vols coach Tony Vitello said afterward in a news conference. “The way our guys reacted and handled those mistakes was better than we’ve done in the past, and I think that was a key to victory. You better learn to take a punch, and I believe this team has gotten better with that as the season has gone on.
“This is a big deal, and there were good vibes by the guys.”
Tennessee improved to 42-15 in its quest to win a third SEC tournament title in four years, while Alabama will await its upcoming NCAA tournament path with a 41-16 record.
SEC pitcher of the year Liam Doyle is scheduled to start for the Vols against the Longhorns (42-11) in their quarterfinal.
Andrew Fischer, Levi Clark and Cannon Peebles each had three hits for the Vols, with Fischer needing only his first-at bat to reach safely for the 57th game this season out of 57 tries. Gavin Kilen, Hunter Ensley, Dean Curley, Reese Chapman and Manny Marin produced two hits apiece.
Clark served as the designated hitter, with the freshman making the most of his first SEC tournament game.
“Walking up to the plate, you think about that, but once you get in the box, it kind of goes quiet,” Clark said. “You don’t really have time to think about it. You just have to think about your task.”
Kilen drove in three runs in the first four innings to help stake Tennessee to a 5-1 lead, but Curley’s two-out throwing error from second base helped extend what would be a five-run fifth inning for the Crimson Tide. Curley’s gaffe allowed Brady Neal and Brennen Norton to score to make it 5-4, and Richie Bonomolo’s double into left-center field brought home Justin Lebron and Kade Snell to put Alabama up 6-5.
There have been times lately when such an outburst would stagger Tennessee, but the Vols delivered the impressive counter with a five-run sixth inning that began with Dalton Bargo’s RBI single to left and continued with Chapman’s two-run single to left-center, Clark’s RBI double to right-center and an RBI single by Peebles to left.
The five-run outburst put Tennessee up 11-6, and Chapman’s two-run homer to right in the eighth inning made it 13-6.
“It was a really good game through five,” Alabama coach Rob Vaughn said. “They came out and were swinging the bats extremely well, but I thought we did a good job of minimizing innings early. To grab the lead there in the middle is exactly where you want to be, and then we just couldn’t stop them.
“Their offense was firing on all cylinders.”
In a slugfest that produced 25 runs, Tennessee did have its moments on the mound.
Marcus Phillips started and retired the first nine batters he faced, while AJ Russell worked 3 2/3 innings in relief for the win, retiring the Tide in order in the sixth and seventh. It was Russell’s first appearance at Hoover Met since starting last year’s SEC championship game win over LSU, which transpired just weeks before he underwent Tommy John surgery.
“It’s something you think about before the game and all that, but once you get on the mound, it’s time to compete,” Russell said. “It was really good to be out there, and I was happy to settle in.”
The error by Curley was his 15th this season, more than doubling the next-highest total by a Tennessee player. Curley is also hitting .314, and Vitello has no plans to make any changes.
“I’m ride or die for anything on or off the field with that guy,” Vitello said. “He’s done a really good job for us adjusting at second. That was a play that was kind of a tricky one as far as the hop you get.
“Because of the way he fielded it, he thought he needed to get rid of it right away. It was an odd play.”
An odd play that quickly became secondary when Peebles tied the game with an RBI single to right-center later in the fifth and then Tennessee’s eruption in the sixth. The 20 hits allowed by Alabama were the most since 2017.
“I know they scuffled a little bit down the stretch and haven’t played their best baseball, but that offense is scary,” Vaughn said. “When it gets rolling, it’s scary, and they were rolling from the rip.”
Groves commits
Tennessee picked up its eighth football commitment for the 2026 signing cycle Wednesday afternoon, receiving a nonbinding pledge from four-star edge rusher Zach Groves from East Robertson High School in Cross Plains, Tennessee.
The 6-foot-4, 252-pounder is a four-star prospect in the 247Sports.com composite rankings.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.