A Southeastern Conference Eastern Division baseball title and this past weekend’s runner-up finish in the league tournament resulted in the No. 3 overall seed for the Tennessee Volunteers at the upcoming NCAA tournament.
Tennessee (45-16) will open NCAA play Friday night at 6 against Wright State (35-11) in the Knoxville Regional, which also contains Duke (32-20) and Liberty (39-14), who will collide Friday at noon. The Knoxville Regional was viewed as one of the toughest during Monday afternoon’s selection show on ESPN2, with Duke having recently won the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.
The Blue Devils will enter Knoxville on a 12-game winning streak, while Wright State out of the Horizon League will arrive leading the nation with 10.6 runs a game and having prevailed in 21 of its last 22 contests. Liberty will enter after blistering the Atlantic Sun during the regular season with a 19-2 mark.
“It’s the same as our theme all year long,” Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said Monday afternoon on a Zoom call. “I think we have a competitive group, and they certainly seek out challenges more than they hide from them. There is a great challenge in this deal.
“We’re just getting familiar with all this stuff, but we have three conference champions coming to our place. Each of us will have each other’s attention, but you can only focus on the team that you’re playing the first game.”