Chase Dollander isn’t just focused on velocity and control as fall baseball gets underway for Tennessee. The junior pitcher knows there is another task at hand, too.
“The guys coming back are trying to lead the guys in the best way possible that we can,” Dollander said Friday. “Just kind of trying to show them around and show them the ropes of what’s going to happen, what’s going to go on with this fall, just kind of some things that the coaches expect from us.
“As of right now, they’re doing a really good job with it. The older guys just have to step into that leadership role.”
Offseason attrition hit Tennessee’s lineup hard, so it will have to replace numerous key pieces from a team that won 57 games and claimed the SEC Tournament title last season.
The Vols are also breaking in multiple new players, a process that includes acclimation to the program’s way of doing things both on the field and off it.
“I think the transition in the weight room, it will grab your attention the most aggressively, I guess,” coach Tony Vitello said. “And I think that group adjusted about as well as you possibly can. It’s going to be difficult. The standards are different than the kids have when they come in, so (Quentin Eberhardt) is going to have them doing a little extra.
“They did have to go through some days of those periods and there’s still corrections going on, but overall, I think that group adjusted about as quickly as you can to just getting acclimated, what our standards are, what we’re looking for.”
Imparting those standards is where Tennessee’s returning players come in. Vitello has been pleased with fifth-year pitcher Camden Sewell in that regard.
“I think Camden (Sewell) is just in a different place than he’s ever been,” Vitello said. “I don’t think he has the world figured out. He’s still young just like all the other guys, at least relatively young, but he’s certainly been a leader.”
The onus is also on the Vols’ other returning pitchers, including Chase Burns and Drew Beam, to show leadership despite still being in the early stages of their own Tennessee careers, as they already proved their worth last season.
In a “completely different” outfield, Christian Scott is trying to lead “in his own way,” according to Vitello.
“It’s going to be interesting,” Vitello said. “We’re going to need guys to not necessarily be the captain, like Mr. (Derek) Jeter or anything like that, for the positional group, but there’s going to need to be bits of leadership from almost everybody that’s going to contribute for us on the field, and it’s going to be a lot of guys.”
Vitello and Tennessee’s veterans can point to what the program has accomplished in recent years, and the greater heights it could reach, to motivate them to buy in.
“At the very least, we’ve shown that we’ll look out for their best interests,” Vitello said. “If they buy in to the way we’re going to do things, then there’s a good chance there’s wins on the horizon. But I hope they’re hungry, and I hope the older guys are hungry, too. If you look at some of the tradition that was here at our school … it’s been a very small portion of time that we’ve had success.
“And then if you’re going to look around the league, you’re talking about really, other than a handful of schools across the country, the best tradition in college baseball is in our league. We haven’t done nearly as much as some of these programs have, even in recent history. So I think a big key for them is to stay hungry and realize there’s a lot more that we’d like to accomplish.”
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