KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – Tennessee is seeking its seventh regional championship in program history, taking on No. 2 seed Southern Miss in the regional championship round of the Knoxville regional.

The Volunteers will have two opportunities to defeat the Golden Eagles once to advance to a fourth straight Super Regional.

It’s the first time the two programs have met since the 2023 Hattiesburg Super Regional.

Southern Miss battled back from the loser’s bracket, defeating Northern Kentucky 6-0 on Saturday and Indiana 15-3 earlier on Saturday to punch its ticket to the regional finals.

It’s the first time the two teams have met in Knoxville since 1991.

Southern Miss is the home team for today’s game.

Follow along with updates below. Scoring plays are listed in italics.

TOP FIRST INNING

A Blake Burke walk was erased by a Billy Amick double play as the Vols were unable to score in the first inning for the tenth straight game.

BOTTOM FIRST INNING

A leaping grab from Christian Moore helped Zander Sechrist retire Southern Miss in order to close the first.

TOP SECOND INNING

Dylan Dreiling led off the inning with a double down the left field line.

Hunter Ensley drove in Tennessee’s first run of the game with an RBI single | Tennessee 1, Southern Miss

Ensley was thrown out on an attempted steal of second.

BOTTOM SECOND INNING

A second scoreless frame from Sechrist kept the Vols up 1-0 after two innings.

TOP THIRD INNING

Cal Stark drew a leadoff walk but was unable to advance further.

BOTTOM THIRD INNING

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Tennessee baseball is sitting in the driver’s seat of the Knoxville Regional after its 12-6 win over Indiana. The win set up the Vols to be one win away from earning a spot in the Super Regionals. Tennessee would host the winner out of the Greenville bracket for a spot in Omaha. 

The Hoosiers struggled to slow down the Vols at the plate. They didn’t sit the Vols down 1-2-3 until the seventh inning. Tennessee’s bats totaled 12 runs on 13 hits, with five home runs throughout the game. 

Drew Beam and the pitching staff struggled to keep Indiana at bay for moments throughout the game. A Devin Taylor three-run home run in the third inning gave the Hoosiers some life, followed by a run scored off a base hit in the fourth inning and two runs scored in the eighth. 

Andrew Behnke took over for Beam in the fourth and carried the Vols throughout the heart of the game, getting the Vols to the eighth inning with an eight-run lead. The bullpen struggled to finish off Indiana in the game’s final two innings. 

In the eighth inning, Marcus Phillips came in relief but didn’t last long. Dylan Loy became the second Tennessee pitcher to take the mound in the eighth inning after Phillips gave up an earned run and only recorded one out. 

Loy couldn’t slow down the Hoosiers either, giving up another run on nine pitches without recording an out before being pulled. The third pitcher of the eighth inning was Tennessee’s leverage pitcher, Aaron Combs, who came into the eighth with one out and runners on first and second base. 

Combs wasted no time retiring the next two Indiana batters, getting the Vols out of the jam, and putting them three outs away from advancing through the winner’s bracket. Combs remained in the game for the ninth inning but faced trouble shutting down the fighting Hoosiers. 

He ultimately got the job done after allowing two hits, saving another arm for the Vols ahead of Championship Sunday and sending the Vols to the final round of regionals. Tennessee’s pitching staff totaled ten strikeouts while allowing six runs on 11 hits throughout the night. 

After a stressful final two innings, the Combs and the Vols shut the door on Indiana. The offense carried the Vols to the win, posting double-digit runs and 21 total runs over the first two games of the NCAA Tournament. 

With Indiana’s loss, they will face Southern Miss on Sunday at 12:00 PM ET. The winner of that game will face Tennessee in a win-or-go-home game at 6:00 PM ET. Tennessee will have some wiggle room on Sunday and would need to lose twice to be eliminated, with the second game taking place on Monday if necessary.

Despite leading by six runs with one-out in the eighth inning, Tennessee inserted star reliever Aaron Combs to record the final five outs of the Vols’ 12-6 victory over Indiana in the pivotal fourth game of the Knoxville Regional.

Indiana was threatening with two on and had already scored two runs in the inning. After a dominant relief outing from Andrew Behnke, both Marcus Phillips and Dylan Loy combined for just the one out while allowing three hits and a walk. That’s when Vitello made the move to Combs instead of having him go into Sunday’s Knoxville Regional completely fresh.

But according to the Vols’ seventh-year head coach, Tennessee always planned on using Combs at some point.

“There’s nothing to save and today was a big day for anyone that was in the winner’s bracket because you want to get into a position where you can watch the game tomorrow,” Vitello said. “He was down there in the fourth inning, so it was a matter of kind of measuring it the way we wanted to and Behnke kind of flipped the script on us.”

Behnke entered with two outs in the fourth inning after a short Drew Beam outing. But he pitched a career-high 3.1 innings which pushed back Tennessee’s timeline on when it would use Combs.

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“Aaron (Combs) always wants the ball,” Vitello said. “The fact he was out there to close it, I think made it a cleaner ending than it could have been and I think he’ll still be available for, again, whatever lies ahead.”

Combs did what he’s done the last two months, shutting down Indiana to end the game. He threw 28 pitches in the final two innings. Its unclear whether Combs could throw tomorrow but if the regional extends to Monday than the right-handed pitcher could eat more innings.

What does Tennessee’s pitching staff have left entering the regional final against either Indiana or Southern Miss?

Zander Sechrist will almost certainly start and is coming off back-to-back appearances where he’s combined to allow two runs in 12 innings pitched. Star reliever Nate Snead hasn’t thrown yet this weekend and has thrown up to 75 pitches in a number of outings in the last month.

Kirby Connell (34 pitches) and Chris Stamos (16 pitches) will both be available after pitching in Tennessee’s Friday night win over Northern Kentucky. Vitello also said that both Phillips and Loy will be available again on Sunday night.

First pitch for the Vols’ matchup against either Indiana or Southern Miss is at 6 p.m. ET at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.