Tennessee baseball secures a share of the 2024 SEC regular-season championship
Tennessee baseball clinched a share of the 2024 SEC regular-season title on the final day of the regular season with a 4-1 victory over South Carolina, aided by Vanderbilt’s 12-4 upset over No. 2 Kentucky. The Vols entered Saturday trailing the Wildcats by one game in the SEC standings and needed both a sweep of the Gamecocks and for the Commodores to avoid a sweep in Lexington.
This marks the second time in three seasons that the Vols have claimed at least a share of the SEC regular-season title, and it’s the fifth time in program history. Tennessee last won the title in 2022, and before Tony Vitello’s tenure, their previous win was in 1995.
“That’s very difficult to do,” Vitello said afterward. “Congrats to anybody in this league that finished with a winning record. It ain’t easy.
“I’m proud of our guys. There wasn’t a lot of chatter about any of that stuff going on. I didn’t hear any scores or anything like that. The guys were just focused on the task at hand. And if you do that, if you have the right approach, more times than not, the result will work itself out.”
With their win over South Carolina and Kentucky’s loss, Tennessee also won the SEC East in the division’s final year of existence. UT has now won the East three out of the last four years and nine times in program history, last claiming the division title in 1997 before Vitello’s tenure.
The Volunteers will be the No. 1 overall seed in next week’s SEC Baseball Tournament following their productive day to end the regular season. They will open in Hoover, Ala. on Wednesday afternoon in the third game of the day against the winner of Tuesday’s game between the No. 8 seed and No. 9 seed. First pitch for the Vols will be at 5:30 p.m. ET on the SEC Network.
“It takes a village, especially if you’re kind of coming from—we’re pretty blessed, so there’s no sympathy needed—but it’s not like we have the biggest stadium or the best tradition or this or that,” Vitello said. “In order to make progress, like I said, it takes a village and there’s an awful lot of people that have helped.
“We appreciate that. We recognize that. We don’t take it for granted and it’s nice when the guys can celebrate it.”
Tennessee left-handed pitcher Zander Sechrist delivered one of his best starts of the season to lead UT to victory in the finale. Sechrist completed a career-high six scoreless innings to pick up the win and improve to 2-1. He didn’t allow a walk, gave up just four hits, and struck out four. He threw 65 pitches, 47 of which were strikes.
It was a relatively quiet afternoon for the Tennessee offense despite tallying nine hits. UT managed to score just four runs, with one in the fourth inning and three in the fifth.
Kavares Tears drove in the Vols’ run in the fourth with an RBI double, scoring Hunter Ensley from first after Ensley walked with two outs.
Tennessee scored three runs on five hits in the fifth inning. Dalton Bargo led off with a single to left field, followed by consecutive singles from Christian Moore, Blake Burke, Billy Amick, and Dylan Dreiling, extending the lead to 4-0. Burke, Amick, and Dreiling each drove in a run, making the inning decisive in securing the win.
