Tennessee baseball will leave the Lone Star State with a weekend series win.
Though the Vols faced three different battles in the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series, they still left with two wins out of three. The latest comes by way of a pitcher’s outdueling over Virginia Tech, 3-1.
Tennessee’s (8-3) lone loss of the weekend came to No. 1 UCLA on Friday.
Henry Ford, Blaine Brown, Levi Clark and Ariel Antigua each mustered up a hit in Tennessee’s four-hit day.
Virginia Tech (7-4) struggled against Tennessee’s pitching in situational spots. The Hokies failed to record a hit (0-for-10) with runners on base, went hitless (0-for-4) with them in scoring position and also posted zeros (0-for-8) with two outs on the board.
Battle of the starters
Evan Blanco and Ethan Grim put together a top-tier pitcher’s duel in a major league ballpark on Sunday.
The two starters allowed four hits and three walks against 40 total batters. Both got pulled in the sixth inning of a 1-1 game.
Blanco, a former ACC arm for rival Virginia, pitched the best outing of his season. He went 91 pitches, allowing two hits, a walk and three hit batters. The lone run he surrendered came on a line-drive homer to Nick Locurto in the fourth inning — the frame directly after the Vols took the lead.
He exited the game in the top of the sixth inning after facing minimal trouble. Blanco allowed a one-out single, then hit the following batter on a payoff pitch. That ended his day in favor of Mark Hindy, who picked up a strikeout and a foul out to end the threat.
Grim, a true freshman, one-upped Blanco by keeping the ball in the ballpark. He was, however, tagged with a second earned run after he exited the game. Grim managed five strikeouts and two walks, allowing two hits and two earned runs across 72 pitches in five innings.
The Vols struggled out of the gate on Grim. He retired eight in a row to open the game before an Antigua single out of the nine-hole put the first runner aboard. And that single sparked Tennessee’s first run. Abernathy drew a walk before Ford brought Antigua home on an RBI single in the third.
Grim retired the next seven in a row after Ford’s base knock, before Abernathy returned to the plate in the sixth and drew another walk — ending the freshman’s day.
Luck wins
Tennessee unraveled the 1-all tie in the bottom of the sixth inning when Virginia Tech went to the bullpen.
Jay Abernathy drew a leadoff walk — putting Tennessee’s first leadoff hitter aboard for the day. Ford pushed Abernathy to second on a groundout, then Brown stood in.
The three-hole hitter smacked a ball off the second-base bag, trickling to the outfield, allowing Abernathy to make his rounds to home plate. It put Tennessee ahead by a run.
Levi Clark followed with an RBI double down the left-field line to score Brown, pushing the Vols up 3-1.
Sharp Brayden Krenzel
Cam Appenzeller did the dirty work with a two-inning save on Saturday, and Brayden Krenzel followed with it on Sunday.
Krenzel picked up the final nine outs of the game, earning a three-inning save. He did so allowing two total baserunners — a hit and a walk. Krenzel did not allow a baserunner after a one-out walk in the seventh inning, retiring the last eight in a row.
He threw 39 pitches, striking out four of the 10 batters he faced.
Tennessee baseball returns to Lindsey Nelson Stadium with a double midweek against ETSU on March 3 and Oakland on March 4.
