During early-season skid, Vols kept sights on postseason run

Griffin Merritt stood in front of reporters inside Lindsey Nelson Stadium and made a declaration that seemed unlikely at the time.

Tennessee had just salvaged Game 3 of its series against Florida on April 8. The Vols lost the first two games and would go on to lose four of its next five games, including a series-sweeping loss at Arkansas and a midweek thumping at the hands of Tennessee Tech.

But Merritt remained confident.

“It’s a team that is finding it’s way, but the good thing that I can say is if this team keeps trending upwards, nobody in the country is going to want to see us in their regional if we’re not hosting,” Merritt said. “Nobody is going to want to play us in Hoover. For us, it’s finding a way to play good baseball, and I think we just have to keep at the things we have to get better at and we’ll get there.”

What may have seemed like lip service at the time proved to be prophetic.

Tennessee pulled off a remarkable turnaround that started with a series sweep of Vanderbilt, which opened the way for a strong close to the regular season that put the Vols in the regional hosting conversation.

An early exit in the SEC Tournament kept Tennessee from hosting, but the Vols ended up being the team that Clemson didn't want to see in its regional. Tennessee beat the Tigers 6-5 in 14 innings and Charlotte twice to win the Clemson Regional.

Now these Vols—once left for dead—are two wins away from their second College World Series appearance in three years, exactly in the position they believed they would be in.

"I think this team was always a good team," Merritt said. "I think this team had growing pains more than maybe the fans were used to last year. There was a lot of new faces and that takes some time. Those lessons and some of those tougher days have built you up for this part of the season where, you know, we've been down in games, we've had to come back in games.

"We've had some things that haven't gone our way this season. Deal with it and move on. I think that's the best mindset that you can have this time of year."

The reason for the optimism started with Tennessee's pitching depth, which was on full display in the Clemson Regional.

As the game against Clemson wore on into extra innings, Tennessee remarkably used just three arms. Chase Dollander got the start before Chase Burns tossed 100 pitches in 6.1 innings. Seth Halvorsen finished off the win.

Pitching was an asset everyone knew Tennessee (41-19) would have at the beginning of the season and its using it to its advantage at time where it is needed most.

"Maybe it was because I've around longer than some of the guys, I notice that at the end of the year, it's about depth, especially depth on the mound," Merritt said. "That's something that we're fortunate to have a lot of here. Teams, maybe this past weekend are playing on Monday and they're stretched a little thin.

"If we had to do that, we are fine. I think that Clemson game, depth-wise as well, we were ready to play 10 more innings if we had to. We would have been completely fine on the mound...I think our whole team has bought in to just doing whatever it takes to win individually, finding your role and trying to win."

"I think what (Merritt) was getting at was, our guys are capable when they have their best approach at the field and the backbone of that confidence is the pitching staff," Vitello added. "If we've got to go deep into the game or it's an extra innings game and we've got to rely on a guy to get us a hundred pitches, we've got guys that can do that."

While strong pitching was expected, Tennessee had to replace a plethora of production in other areas from a team that was college baseball's best for much of last season.

The current Vols had to take on a new personality with a number of new faces. That took some time, particularly during a rough two-month stretch earlier in the season but the team has seemingly found out who they are and they've embraced it.

"I think this team has formulated their own personality which is starting to come out more," Vitello said. "That kind of same theme of let's keep getting stronger in any area that we can and that starts with the individual. Let your personality come out, maybe get better in an area where you struggled with earlier in the year and as a team, keeping pushing forward to try and find our best baseball."

Tennessee hopes that personality shows up again this weekend against Southern Miss (45-18), the winners out of the Auburn Regional last week.

Despite holding the edge in RPI, strength of schedule and going 4-0 in its regional, Tennessee missed out on hosting a Super Regional with the NCAA instead selecting Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which has drawn some criticism.

But the Vols aren't too hung up on the venue. They've played at Arkansas, LSU and South Carolina this season and there's reason to be confident that those experiences will go a long way in being able handling Pete Taylor Park where the Golden Eagles are 26-5.

"We would have loved to be at home but we were anticipating going on the road," Merritt said. "If they told us to go to the moon and play, we'd go to the moon. We don't really care about where we're going to be. We're just trying to go out there and win baseball games.

"We're playing Southern Miss who is a very good baseball team and they play well at home and they have a huge fan base. We understand the challenge and we're ready for it."

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