Tennessee junior pitcher Liam Doyle was more than up for the challenge of facing his former team on the road.
Doyle racked up 14 strikeouts and worked into the ninth inning Friday night in leading the No. 4 Volunteers to a 3-2 victory over No. 7 Ole Miss before a Swayze Field crowd of 11,818. The 6-foot-2, 220-pounder from Derry, New Hampshire, improved to 6-1 this season while lowering his earned run average to 2.47, and he now has an eye-popping 95 strikeouts in 51 innings.
“That was unreal,” Doyle said after the longest outing of his career. “This is a special place to me. I know not too many people like me here, but just to be able to come back here and dominate and do what I did was fun. Seeing my family and friends here and being able to do this here was pretty cool.
“I circled this one when I first came to Tennessee, and I wanted to make it special.”
Tennessee improved to 30-4 overall and to 10-3 in Southeastern Conference play, while Ole Miss fell to 26-8 and to 8-5 within the league.