Tony Vitello addresses praise as No. 1 team, applies strange analogy

Tennessee has steadily remained a national championship favorite for the entirety of the 2022 college baseball season, and they’re finally showing why as the No. 1 overall seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament.

Head coach Tony Vitello addressed the consistency his team has shown over a grueling season, outright winning the SEC’s regular season and tournament titles – but that doesn’t mean his team can become complacent, and the Vols are taking things one game at a time head of this weekend’s Super Regional action.

“Last week, someone asked me walking into the park, do you want to play Campbell or Georgia Tech?” Vitello said. “And I said, ‘Well, would you like to be waterboarded by Aquafina or Dasani?’ It doesn’t matter – they’re both going to be good.

“It doesn’t matter what the score is, everybody now knows that from last game [with Georgia Tech], it’s gonna it’s gonna be hell from pitch one until the last pitch; from the start of the series until the end of the series – not just here, but across the country.”

Campbell gave the No. 1 ranked team in the nation a run for their money as well, falling to the Vols 12-7. Those seven runs are the most any team have scored on Vitello’s squad since April 30 in an 8-6 loss to the Auburn Tigers at home.

It seems too often that teams find their bats stalling and can’t seem to keep Tennessee off base. Sitting at 56-7 overall (the best record in the country), there aren’t many critiques to be made of Vitello’s 2022 squad in one of the toughest leagues in the nation.

“Fortunately, our guys played well down the stretch,” Vitello said. “Everyone loves to point out a blip on the radar screen in Kentucky, but we talk to our players in the outfield, and we told them that weekend was going to serve them well.”

And boy it did. Since the 2-1 series loss to the Wildcats on the road, not only have the Vols not dropped a single series, but they’ve amassed a 15-1 record since. The run has included taking a win back over Kentucky in the SEC Tournament, not to mention winning the whole conference tournament and earning that coveted 50-win mark before the NCAA Tournament even began.

Now that the Vols have swept through the Knoxville Regional and find themselves hosting a Super Regional against Notre Dame. The first pitch of Game 1 is set to be thrown at 6 p.m. ET live from Lindsey Nelson Stadium with ESPN2 carrying the national broadcast.