After playing nine combined games at the past two Southeastern Conference baseball tournaments, the Tennessee Volunteers had a much quicker stay this week.
Tennessee, which finished runner-up at the 2021 SEC tournament and won last May’s 12-team extravaganza, went one-and-done Tuesday inside Hoover Met with a 3-0 loss to Texas A&M. Starting pitcher Troy Wansing was brilliant for the 10th-seeded Aggies, retiring 24 of the 25 batters he faced in eight innings with seven strikeouts.
“Our guys were certainly trying,” coach Tony Vitello said in a news conference after his seventh-seeded Vols were held to one hit. “There was some tough guy in the stands who didn’t think they were, but I can guarantee you our guys are trying, otherwise they’re not on the field this time of year.
“Baseball is a game of percentages, and our at-bats have been pretty good, but you take one day, and anything can happen.”
Tuesday’s contest was delayed by rain for more than an hour in the top of the ninth inning, or else Tennessee’s stay would have been even more brief.
The Vols, who are ranked No. 13 in this week’s DI Baseball poll, fell to 38-19 and now must wait until Sunday evening to learn whether they will be among the 16 teams hosting an NCAA tournament regional. The entire 64-team field will be revealed next Monday at noon on ESPN2.
“Some teams have benefited from this,” Vitello said of the added time off. “You can gas some guys out and maybe that costs you in a regional, or you can get some guys fresh and get them sorted, and it can benefit you.”
With Andrew Lindsey having pitched last Friday’s opener at South Carolina and with Chase Dollander and Drew Beam having started Saturday’s doubleheader, Vitello went with Seth Halvorsen on Tuesday. A 14-game starter at Missouri in 2021 who transferred to Tennessee before sitting out last season due to injury, Halvorsen tallied two strikeouts in the first inning but struggled in the third, allowing a one-out walk to Hunter Haas, who went to third base on a Jack Moss single to right field and then scored on Trevor Werner’s fielder’s choice.
Texas A&M (33-23) went up 2-0 in the fourth, when Jordan Thompson led off with a single to left, stole second, advanced to third on a balk and scored on an Austin Bost single up the middle.
“Things obviously tensed up a little bit as they took the lead,” Vitello said, “and then we had a couple balls that didn’t go where we wanted them to. It was one of those games where we didn’t have much room for error.”
Camden Sewell replaced Halvorsen in the fifth inning and retired nine of the 10 batters he faced, but the former Cleveland High standout’s lone gaffe was Jace LaViolette’s home run to right in the sixth. Wansing took a perfect game into the sixth, when Christian Scott broke it up with a one-out single to right-center.
Wansing had started Texas A&M’s 8-7 loss at Tennessee on March 25, when he retired just four of 10 batters and allowed four runs on four hits and two walks.
“It kind of felt like everything came together today,” Wansing said. “I just hope I can continue that kind of momentum and carry that into the postseason.”
Said Vitello: “We saw a different version of that guy today.”
The Aggies advanced to play second-seeded Arkansas on Wednesday afternoon.
Bulldogs bounced
The SEC tournament opened Tuesday morning with sixth-seeded South Carolina blanking 11th-seeded Georgia 9-0 behind pitcher James Hicks, who allowed just four hits in nearly seven full innings while striking out six.
It was the 81st SEC tourney game in Gamecocks history and their first shutout victory.
Georgia’s season ended with a 29-27 overall record that included an 11-19 mark in league play. The Bulldogs are not lacking for history on the diamond, having won the 1990 College World Series and finishing runner-up in 2008, but they will miss out on the NCAA tournament for the eighth time in the last 11 opportunities.
“When you look at it on paper, we had a bad year,” Georgia coach Scott Stricklin said. “That’s the way I look at it. This program has a lot of expectations, and it has a lot of pride, and I didn’t feel like we performed up to our expectations.
“That’s on me as the head coach. That’s my responsibility. I take a lot of pride in trying to uphold that expectation here at Georgia, and this year we came up short.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.