Defending national champion Tennessee needed an impressive week at the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament to enhance its chances of hosting an NCAA tournament regional.
Thursday's quarterfinal inside Hoover Met Stadium in Alabama may wind up being the statement that secured it.
The eighth-seeded Volunteers overcame a rough outing by starting pitcher Liam Doyle and a four-run deficit to stun top-seeded Texas 7-5 in 12 innings. Gavin Kilen's home run to right field in the top of the 10th inning gave Tennessee its first lead at 5-4, and his double to right-center in the 12th scored Jay Abernathy and Cannon Peebles to produce an advantage the Longhorns could not overcome in their SEC tournament debut.
"This team is not defending but pursuing," Vols coach Tony Vitello said in a news conference afterward. "There is good stuff going on here, but I think what they're pursuing is to get better. We really have not played our best baseball, and there has not been a lot of talk about other stuff."
There are 16 teams that will host four-team regionals next week to begin the NCAA tournament. Tennessee began this week ranked No. 17 in the USA Today coaches poll and having lost five consecutive series, but Thursday's triumph enabled the Vols to move up to ninth in the Rating Percentage Index metrics used by the NCAA selection committee.
Tennessee, which advanced into the quarterfinals with Wednesday afternoon's 15-10 downing of Alabama, will play in Saturday's first semifinal, which has a scheduled start of 1 p.m. Eastern. The Vols (43-15) will face the winner of Thursday night's late quarterfinal between fourth-seeded Vanderbilt and 12th-seeded Oklahoma.
The Longhorns (42-12) are certain to host an NCAA regional (and a super regional, provided they advance) after winning the strongest conference's regular-season championship.
"This was an ESPN classic," Vitello said. "I think playing this game will help both teams. I don't want to speak for them, but I think the No. 1 reason they won the league was their bullpen was so good.
"I think the fact we got it done against their bullpen should give our guys great confidence."
Although Kilen provided the late heroics with his seventh straight multihit game, the star of Tennessee's show was his roommate, redshirt sophomore relief pitcher Brandon Arvidson. The 6-foot-5, 215-pounder from Dripping Springs, Texas, worked more than five innings, more than doubling his previous long outing of the season.
Arvidson, who started his college baseball career at Texas A&M in 2023, faced 21 batters and retired nine of them by strikeout.
"It's definitely an incentive to pitch better," Arvidson said of challenging the Longhorns, "but I was going to be excited no matter who we were facing. The curveball was really working today, and I felt like I could throw it anywhere."
After Kilen's two-out homer in the top of the 10th, Texas extended the game when Rylan Galvan scored on Kimble Schuessler's single to left. Galvan had led off with a single up the middle and advanced to third when Arvidson sailed his pickoff attempt over the head of first baseman Andrew Fischer.
"The thing that can't be lost is that Arvidson got one of the biggest outs of yesterday's game," Vitello said. "He probably had to be fading a little bit there, but I might have gotten booed out of our dugout if we had taken him out before they scored."
The Longhorns seemed in control when Ethan Mendoza's two-run triple off the wall in the right-field corner extended their lead to 4-0 in the fourth inning and chased Doyle. He failed to work four full innings before allowing four runs on six hits and two walks.
Doyle also struggled last Friday at Arkansas, with the SEC pitcher of the year's ERA jumping from 2.17 to 3.32 after his past two performances.
"We did a great job against Doyle," said first-year Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle, who guided Texas A&M to the College World Series finals against Tennessee last June. "He's such a good pitcher, and I thought we battled him. Ethan got the big hit, but then Arvidson was outstanding. He was really the difference in the game.
"It stinks to go home. This is a fun place to be this time of year."
White recognized
Tennessee's Danny White has been named the athletic director of the year by Sports Business Journal and was presented the award Wednesday night in New York City.
Under his guidance, Tennessee's athletic teams placed third in the Learfield Directors' Cup during the 2023-24 school year, its top placement ever. Tennessee has also won the past three SEC All-Sports trophies.
With the 2024-25 school year winding down, Tennessee is the only school to have its programs reach the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff and the Sweet 16 of the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.
On the financial front, White has overseen growth that resulted in more than $234 million in total operating revenue for the 2024 fiscal year, which was bolstered by $72.7 million in contributions, an increase of 233% since the 2021 fiscal year. White and his leadership team partnered with Pilot, the presenting partner of Neyland Stadium's $337 million renovation project, as well as with Food City in a 10-year naming rights deal worth $20 million at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Contact David Paschall at [email protected].