By Ashley Stadnicki
There’s surviving… and then there’s whatever Tennessee just did in Lexington.
Because this wasn’t clean. It wasn’t comfortable. And it definitely wasn’t something you diagram as a blueprint going forward. But it was a win. 10–9 over Kentucky. And after the way the first two games of the series went, that was all that mattered.
“Just a wild game all the way around, a bunch of punches being thrown back and forth,” head coach Josh Elander said afterward.
That about sums it up.
For a while, though, it didn’t feel wild. It felt controlled. Tennessee looked like the sharper team early, responding immediately after Kentucky scored in the first. Reese Chapman tied things up with a solo shot, and Levi Clark followed with another to right. Back-to-back, opposite field, and suddenly the Vols had flipped the game and the energy.
From there, the offense kept doing exactly what it needed to do. Move runners. String together quality at-bats. Apply pressure. It was the version of Tennessee that had been missing earlier in the weekend, and it showed. By the middle innings, the Vols had built a 7–1 lead, and it looked like they were on their way to a relatively stress-free finish.
“Phenomenal job by our offense… moving runners, sack flies… just working together to win,” Elander said.
And for a few innings, it looked like that would be enough.
Then the seventh happened.
Momentum didn’t just shift. It flipped. Kentucky strung together hits, took advantage of mistakes, and suddenly four runs were on the board. A game that felt in hand was now tight at 7–5, and every pitch started to carry a little more weight.
To Tennessee’s credit, they didn’t fold. They answered again.
Levi Clark delivered the biggest swing of the day in the ninth, launching a three-run homer that pushed the lead to 10–6. It felt like the knockout punch, the kind of moment that lets everyone in your dugout finally exhale.
“That’s what you expect. Those guys are franchise players for us,” Elander said of Clark and Chapman. “They need to be in the middle of the lineup.”
Clark certainly looked the part.
But nothing about this game was going to be that simple.
Kentucky came right back. Again. A leadoff homer. Traffic on the bases. Another big hit. Suddenly it was 10–9, and what should have been a comfortable finish turned into a full-blown scramble.
“You give up eight runs in the last three innings and still find a way to get out. We’ll take it anyway we can get it,” Elander said.
That’s the reality of it.
This wasn’t about dominance. It was about finding a way to finish when everything started to unravel.
Brandon Arvidson finally delivered that finish, recording the last two outs and putting an end to a game that felt like it had about five different endings before it actually stuck. When it was over, Tennessee had just enough left to hold on.
This wasn’t just about one game. It was about avoiding a sweep, about showing some response after two flat performances, about proving there’s still fight when things get messy.
A 7–1 lead nearly gone. A 10–6 lead almost erased. A ninth inning that turned into a test of nerves more than anything else.
But Tennessee passed it. Barely.