The Tennessee Volunteers have experienced two gargantuan Southeastern Conference baseball series this spring inside Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
They've come up just short in both of them.
After losing two of three games last month to reigning national champion Vanderbilt, the No. 4 Vols entered Sunday afternoon hoping to take two of three from top-ranked Arkansas. Tennessee took a 1-0 lead into the seventh inning, but the Razorbacks scored a run in each of the last three innings to pull out a 3-2 triumph before a crowd of 3,575.
Sunday's audience at Lindsey Nelson was the largest since 2007, and a whopping 10,152 spectators attended the three-game series that featured three one-run outcomes.
"Our guys have competed their butts off and have done it the right way," Vols coach Tony Vitello said on a Zoom call. "These were heavyweight bouts. They showed up with the right mentality every day, and the results fluctuated. These are kind of what (NCAA) super regional weekends look like - huge crowds, outstanding opponents, every pitch means something - and it comes down to a very small margin between a win and a loss.
"We've got two doses of that."
Vitello said his players managed their emotions better in this series compared to the one against the Commodores. The Vols entered Sunday's finale coming off Saturday's dramatic 8-7 victory that was delivered by Max Ferguson's three-run home run to right field in the ninth.
Shouldering Sunday's load for the Vols was freshman pitcher Blade Tidwell, who worked seven innings and allowed two runs on two hits while striking out eight.
"His performance was electric," Vitello said. "To go as deep as he did gave us a great chance to win. It was his game to win or lose. Unfortunately it didn't work out, but it was a winning effort to the extreme."
The Vols dropped to 39-13 overall and 18-9 in conference play entering this week's schedule that contains Tuesday's home game against Belmont before a weekend series at South Carolina, while Arkansas improved to 39-10 and 19-8. Tennessee will enter its final league series with a half-game lead in the SEC East over 17-9 Vanderbilt.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.