Tennessee
How Tennessee baseball proved it’s comfortable winning ‘pretty’ and ‘ugly’ in Missouri sweep
Kirby Connell turned toward his outfield and howled.
The left-handed relief pitcher, known just as much for his mustache, struck out his second batter in two innings on Saturday and knew that Tennessee baseball not only won a game against Missouri. The Vols pulled off the always challenging SEC series sweep.
No. 3 Tennessee (37-7, 15-6 SEC) beat Missouri 10-1 on Thursday and won 3-2 both on Friday and Saturday at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
Last year, Tennessee was swept by Missouri (19-26, 6-15).
The Vols have won seven games in a row.
Here are the takeaways from the three-game series:
SEC series sweep
It was the second series sweep against an SEC opponent this season. Their first was at home against LSU on April 12-14.
“A sweep is nice, it’s very difficult to get,” Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said. “But when we do play these series our guys know the task at hand: We’re trying to get to two wins before the other team.”
Dean Curley, who had two RBIs on Saturday, said that winning three straight is “awesome” and that it is the result of the hard work from practice during the week.
The Vols had three SEC sweeps last season.
Winning ‘pretty’ and ‘ugly’
The Vols won the series opener with a season-high tying six home runs.
In the next two victories, Tennessee did not hit a single home run and its identical one-run wins were largely on the backs of its defense. Starting pitcher Drew Beam (6-1) allowed six hits and two hits and struck out eight in 7.1 innings on Friday.
Vitello said that the Vols are proving they can pick up wins when the runs aren’t as easy to come by and it’s valuable experience to have before the postseason starts.
Before the series, Tennessee had only won three games in which it scored three or fewer runs.
“You don’t have to win pretty but you just got to win ugly,” Vitello said on Friday. “The team has high ambitions and we’re just looking to become the best versions of ourselves. And in pursuit of doing that, we kind of opened up this Rolodex of ways that we can win and people that we can with.”
Vitello admitted that the defense might be slightly underrated as the bullpen has continued to improve from the start of the season.
“We didn’t feel like defense and pitching, we’re here to brag about it even though we want that to be our strength,” Vitello said. “(Pitching) coach (Frank) Anderson has done such a good job with those pitchers it has become a strength.”
Blake Burke’s hitting streak ends
Blake Burke’s school record for consecutive games with a hit ended at 31 on Thursday.
The junior first baseman, who is second in home runs for a career at Tennessee with 44, also didn’t register a hit on Friday. It was the first time this year that Burke has gone without a hit in back-to-back games. He was 1-for-4 on Saturday.
VOLS HOME RUN LEADERS: Inside Blake Burke and Christian Moore’s homer-bashing, record-trading chase for Tennessee baseball
Vitello admitted that he didn’t closely monitor the streak and implied that it’s possibly a positive that it’s over.
He said that he’s sure that Burke and other players aren’t as concerned with individual records as they tell him they want to win as a team.
“I’ll take Blake Burke 0-for-4 or 5-for-5 any day of the week and he’s kind of already established his status as a Vol. He’s right up there with anyone … J.P. (Arencibia), Todd (Helton), he’s a Vol legend.”
Toyloy Brown III is a Knox News sports reporter. Email toyloy.brown@knoxnews.com. On X, formerly Twitter, @TJ3rd_.
Tennessee baseball received a commitment from UC Irvine pitcher Ricky Ojeda on June 19.
Ojeda, who is eligible for the MLB draft in July, announced his decision on social media. He visited Tennessee on June 15-16.
The lefthanded Ojeda had a strong 2026 season primarily as a reliever, posting a 3.77 ERA with 62 strikeouts and 20 walks in 62 innings. In 2025, he became the first reliever to be named Big West Pitcher of the Year after going 13-1 with a 3.55 ERA and 83 strikeouts in 66 innings, which also earned him a third-team all-American nod from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and Perfect Game.
Whether Ojeda makes it to Tennessee remains an open question. Perfect Game ranked him as the No. 179 prospect for the draft. That would place him in the sixth round.
Should Ojeda join the staff, however, he would instantly become one of the team’s top options out of a bullpen that struggled immensely in 2026. The pitching staff is also under new leadership under pitching coach Austin Knight, who was hired from ECU.
Ojeda is the fourth player to announce they will transfer to Tennessee this offseason, joining two-way Mercer transfer Braydon Kersey, Northwestern State pitcher Brody Trosclair and Air Force infielder Wyatt Hanoian.
Who’s leaving Tennessee baseball
- UTL Jay Abernathy (Oklahoma)
- RHP Nic Abraham
- INF Ariel Antigua (Arizona)
- INF Finley Bates
- RHP Ari Bethea
- OF Hutson Chance
- RHP Sawyer Deering (San Diego State)
- OF Nate Eisfelder
- 1B Evan Hankins (Virginia Tech)
- UTL Hunter High
- RHP Brayden Krenzel (Arkansas)
- INF Manny Marin
- INF Ethan Moore (Missouri)
- UTL Chris Newstrom
- LHP Taylor Tracey
- C Cash Williams (West Virginia)
Who’s joining Tennessee baseball
- RHP/DH Braydon Kersey
- LHP Brody Trosclair
- INF Wyatt Hanoian
- LHP Ricky Ojeda
Emmett Siegel covers Tennessee baseball for Knox News. Email: emmett.siegel@knoxnews.com; X: @EmmettSiegel_
JACKSON, Tenn. (WBBJ) – An exciting day of sporting clays in West Tennessee is doubling as a major fight against hunger.
Today’s “Shooting Hunger” event took place at the Carroll County Shooting Sports Park in Huntingdon. It’s a partnership between Tennessee Farm Bureau, Tennessee Farmers Co-Op, Farm Credit Mid-America and Rural First.
Since 2015, Shooting Hunger has helped provide more than three million meals to Tennesseans with money going to food banks, backpack programs, and local hunger relief. A $500 scholarship will also go to the top youth shooter in each flight.
“We’re joining together to raise money for school backpacks to feed hungry kids. We do these, we actually do three of these across the state of Tennessee so at the end of the day we take, we take all the money we put it into a pile and when we divide equally amongst all 95 counties across the state of Tennessee,“ said Bryan Wright, executive vice president for the Tennessee Farm Bureau.
Organizers say events like this matter because one in six children in Tennessee struggle with hunger.
Copyright 2026 WBBJ. All rights reserved.
Tennessee director of track and field Duane Ross gauged the hunger of the men’s 4×100-meter relay team to pull off the upset.
“They said, ‘Coach, we’re going to win,’ ” Ross said. “When they bring you that much confidence, you can grab your popcorn and enjoy the meet.”
No popcorn was consumed, but the appetite was there from the start.
Traunard Folson, Davonte Howell, T’Mars McCallum and Elijah Clark finished in a school record time of 37.98 seconds at the NCAA Outdoor Championships on June 12 in Eugene, Oregon. It was the the program’s first national title in the 4×100 since 1983 and the fourth-fastest in NCAA history.
Four other relay teams never crossed the line. Auburn, the two-time defending champion, had run an NCAA-record 37.75 in the semifinal, but had a botched handoff on the last exchange. Arkansas, the reigning SEC champion, also dropped its baton, along with Oregon and Houston.
McCallum said staying clean through a race of chaos starts with a focus on winning, even in practice.
“In the moment we can’t really worry about anything else, just what we can control,” McCallum said on June 18. “We came to practice every time with the idea of, ‘OK, we’ve got to make sure this is fixed, because we know if we run that time, we can win.’ “
It was the final event of McCallum’s college career. It didn’t fully hit until the long flight home to Knoxville.
“I was like, we really did it,” he said. “Now we have a school record, the first team to ever go under 38 seconds here.”
Whether belief had anything to do with what went wrong in those four other lanes isn’t something Tennessee’s runners can answer. It’s exactly what they point to for why theirs didn’t.
Clark, a freshman who ran the anchor leg, said winning was just a matter of starting the race.
“We knew we had it the whole time,” he said. “No matter who did what, what happened, we knew what the outcome would come to.”
Ross said the victory wasn’t a surprise inside the program either.
“I wouldn’t say unsung,” Ross said. “I’ve watched this team all year long, and we were expecting to come out of there with the championship. It was a tight competition down to the last event.”
Tennessee finished third in the men’s team standings with 46 points, its best total since 2002.
Howell, a junior who ran the second leg, said the belief behind the relay team’s confidence was built long before the race.
“Three of the four of us already ran under 10 seconds,” he said. “Last year we all trained together during the summer, all lived together. We already had the bond, and adding the freshman on anchor was just a cherry on top. He figured it out at SECs, ran a 10.1, season’s best, and we trusted him to bring it home.”
Clark said the title is already part of something bigger to him.
“The goal is to always make history,” said Clark, who was hired by Tennessee four years ago after a successful run at North Carolina A&T. “It’s been one of my dreams. To be able to be on the wall, especially at a school like this, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
-
Los Angeles, Ca1 hour agoWoman, man found shot to death in Pomona, suspect leads officers on erratic chase
-
Detroit, MI2 hours agoToday in History: June 20, race-related rioting erupts in Detroit
-
San Francisco, CA2 hours agoSan Francisco hotels see steady World Cup business, but fall short of Super Bowl surge
-
Dallas, TX2 hours agoDallas International Piano Competition brings finalists June 23
-
Miami, FL2 hours agoWhere to watch San Francisco Giants vs Miami Marlins: TV channel, start time, streaming for June 20
-
Boston, MA2 hours agoDuck parades, outdoor drinking, and Gronk in a kilt. Here’s how Friday’s World Cup festivities unfolded. – The Boston Globe
-
Denver, CO2 hours agoRockies ride Kyle Freeland’s gem, Braxton Fulford’s double to 4-3 win over Pirates
-
Seattle, WA2 hours agoSuarez’s no-hit try ends on Naylor double in seventh, but Boston still tops Seattle
