Another epic spring sports weekend for Tennessee Athletics. Most of the chatter on this Memorial Day is focused on the Vols hard fought win in the SEC Baseball Tourney championship game to earn the Vols the tourney title to go along with their regular season championship.
The Vols highlighted some of their young talent in the SEC tourney like freshman pitcher Dylan Loy who threw 4 2/3 scoreless innings for the Vols in the championship game. Loy was pitching for Pigeon Forge High School last spring and now finds himself playing a critical bullpen role for the top-ranked Vols.
Tennessee is now the overall #1 seed for the NCAA Baseball Tournament that begins this weekend with sixteen regionals around the country including the Knoxville Region that Tennessee will host.
Additionally, the Tennessee golf team made the Final 15 cut in the NCAA Golf Championship, the Lady Vols hosted a NCAA Super Regional and the Tennessee Track & Field team advanced 19 athletes to the NCAA Track & Field Championships.
To top things off, Tennessee just received its’ third SEC All Sports Title presented by USA Today. The Tennessee men’s program once again was first in the SEC while the women’s program finished second. Tennessee won the title based on the depth of the athletics program instead of number of championships. Tennessee won titles in basketball, baseball and softball while being runner-up in three additional sports. Arkansas led the conference with five championships. Tennessee barely edged Texas A&M 148.13 to 147.50 to win the title. The remaining Top 5 were a distant Florida 129.75, Georgia 124.50 and Arkansas 123.50.
The level of excellence Athletic Director Danny White has established at Tennessee is nothing short of outstanding. Essentially every Tennessee spring team competed for a SEC championship with some competing for a national title.
All eyes are now on the Tennessee Baseball team to see if they can make it back to the College World Series and possibly bring a national title back to Rocky Top.
