The home runs dried up significantly Sunday night for the Tennessee Volunteers.
The pitching didn’t.
Starter Will Heflin and reliever Sean Hunley combined on a five-hitter as an offensive-minded Knoxville Regional ended with Tennessee blanketing Liberty 3-1 to advance to its first NCAA baseball tournament super regional since 2005. It was the first time this season that Hunley had taken the ball after Heflin, Vols coach Tony Vitello said.
“Those guys are thicker than thieves and are very close, and you just felt like one guy wasn’t going to let the other one down,” Vitello said afterward on a Zoom call. “Will mistakenly felt like he let us down in the SEC championship game last weekend when in reality he was phenomenal for us then, and he was just as outstanding tonight.
“He’s been here through the thick and thin of the program and has seen it through, so it was a special deal.”