KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – On Saturday, the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers met for the second game of their weekend series in Lindsey Nelson Stadium. The Vols won the game through a run-rule, 10-0.
Aidan King Impresses in First Career SEC Start
Due to injury issues with Pierce Coppola, freshman right-hander Aidan King has been placed in the starting rotation.
His outing on Saturday against Tennessee was the second of his career after starting against Harvard the weekend before.
Against the Volunteers, he went six innings and struck out six batters. He also gave up just one earned run and one walk.
Head coach Kevin O’Sullivan has gone to King a lot this season. Following Saturday’s game, he has thrown 22 and 1/3 innings this season.
This start in Knoxville was a great way to put his career with Florida on an incredible trajectory.
Tennessee’s Defense Steals the Show
The Volunteers’ defensive display was incredible as they made many great defensive plays.
Freshman Jay Abernathy made two great ones early on, throwing out Colby Shelton trying to score for the Gators. He then made a catch and crashed into the left field wall hard to record the out.
Stone Lawless started at catcher on Saturday and caught a couple of Florida runners stealing.
Even second baseman Gavin Kilen made a sliding play to record a ground out to first base.
Overall, it was the best Tennessee has played on defense all season.
Explosive Seventh Inning Gets Tennessee the Run-Rule Win
The game had a 1-0 score for most of it until the seventh inning. Tennessee loaded the bases, and Dean Curley delivered by clearing the bases. This made it a 4-0 game.
Then, Hunter Ensley came up big again with a base hit that scored Curley. Andrew Fischer followed that up, scoring Kilen and Ensley on a two-run single.
This put Tennessee in a position to win a run-rule.
After a double by Dalton Bargo, Reese Chapman hit the first home run of the weekend series for the Volunteers. He walked off the game with a three-run shot, making it a 10-0 final score.
A game that had little to no offense throughout most of it ended with a spectacular nine-run inning from Tennessee, which put the Knoxville crowd in a frenzy.
WBN NCAA: https://worldbaseball.com/league/ncaa/
