A different day, and a very different result.
After being held to five hits during Friday night’s series opener at Kentucky, the Tennessee Volunteers racked up five runs on five hits in the first inning alone Saturday afternoon to quickly even the series with a 9-4 thumping before a Kentucky Proud Park record crowd of 7,304. Kentucky starting pitcher Dominic Niman faced six Tennessee batters and never recorded an out.
“When you can come out and punch a team in the mouth in the first inning, and they’ve got to change their guy in the first, it’s huge,” Vols junior second baseman and leadoff hitter Christian Moore said. “It sets us up for tomorrow, because we got to see their pen a little more. It was definitely important.”
Tennessee bounced back from Friday’s 5-3 setback to improve to 32-7 overall and to 11-6 in Southeastern Conference play. Saturday marked just the second league setback for the Wildcats (32-6, 15-2).
The rubber match between the No. 3 Wildcats and the No. 4 Vols is at 1 p.m. Sunday.