by Tristan Thornhill
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – On a cold, windy day at Lindsey Nelson Stadium, the No. 4 Tennessee Volunteers completed an opening series sweep of the Hofstra Pride, cruising to an easy 13-1 victory in Sunday’s series finale.
The defending national champs wore their beloved ‘Sunday Creams’ in front of a crowd of 4,814. Their bats picked up right where they left off last year, sending seven homers out of the park this weekend.
However, the story of today’s finale wasn’t the offensive onslaught that the Volunteers displayed, it was rather the amount of Vols that got to see play. 17 different Volunteers saw action in the field and the batter’s box during Sunday’s contest. Senior outfielder Hunter Ensley said “[He] thought it was good to see a bunch of the new guys just get in there… What impressed [him] the most was the pitching, starting from Friday to the last pitch.”
Tennessee got five different pitchers into Sunday’s game, one notably being Junior Nate Snead, who got the start. Snead, who is usually a high-leverage reliever for the Vols said, “I don’t really know what role in the future I’m going to be in. I don’t know if I’ll pitch this mid-week, I don’t know if I’m pitching next weekend. Whenever [Tony Vitello] tells me to go down to the bullpen, or when I’m starting, I’ll just play it by ear.”
Whether he’ll be coming out of the bullpen or not, Snead certainly had his stuff with him today. The righty from South Milwaukee pitched three innings of one-run ball, only giving up two hits and two walks while striking out three.
After Snead gave up a sac-fly in the first inning, the Tennessee bats responded to an early lead from Hofstra with a four spot in the first that was supplied by a wild pitch, Cannon Peebles and Stone Lawless singles through the infield, and an RBI ground out from Reese Chapman.
While the offense was hot all weekend long, Tennessee was aided by Hofstra’s poor fielding. Through three innings of play, Hofstra was throwing the ball anywhere but where it needed to be and had accounted for three errors.
In the second it all unraveled for the Pride, throwing it everywhere around the diamond, allowing Hunter Ensley to reach safely, and thus allowing Dean Curley to score the fifth run of the game.