Vols Baseball off to a great start in Athens

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - No. 18 Tennessee broke open a one-run game with five runs in the seventh inning and held on for a 12-3 victory to open its series at Georgia on Friday night at Foley Field.

The Vols led 2-1 and had just three hits in the game entering that decisive seventh inning before exploding for five runs on six hits to take a 7-1 lead.

Back-to-back RBI singles from Jared Dickey and Blake Burke plated the first two runs of the inning before Christian Moore hit a two-run blast to left field to extend the Tennessee lead to five.

Christian Scott capped the scoring in the frame with his second RBI single of the night to drive in Griffin Merritt. Moore added to his rapidly increasing home run total with a solo shot halfway up the batter’s eye in dead center field in his next at-bat as the Vols tacked on five more runs for good measure in the ninth inning to ice the game away. The sophomore has now gone deep in four straight games and has hit six total homers in that span to give him 12 for the season.

Zane Denton also homered in the ninth inning, his 11th of the year. Maui Ahuna joined the group of Moore, Merritt and Scott, who all had multiple hits on the night as UT finished with 14 total for the game, marking its eighth consecutive contest with double-digit hits.

Hunter Ensley also had another ultra-productive game, scoring twice and reaching base four times after getting hit by three pitches, drawing a walk and recording an infield single. The Huntingdon, Tennessee, native also made two highlight-reel diving catches in center field.

Camden Sewell improved to 4-0 on the year after tossing 2.2 solid innings of relief, entering the game with two runners on and only one out in the fifth inning before recording a pair of outs to get the Big Orange out of the jam to keep their 2-1 lead intact.

Tennessee (32-14, 12-10 SEC) will look to win its third straight series and its first on the road this season when the Vols and Bulldogs (25-21, 8-14 SEC) meet for game two of the series in Athens on Saturday afternoon. The game will be streamed live on SEC Network+ through the ESPN app.

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