Tennessee heads to Mississippi State for regular season finale

The final weekend of the regular season has arrived.

Coming off a dominating 18-0 midweek win over a strong Belmont team, No. 1 Tennessee now heads to Starkville to take on a struggling Mississippi State team in a three-game series that begins Thursday night.

“I think what you got out of today those guys are gonna be a little more fresh,” Tony Vitello said after the win. “That's just a fact. They only played four or five innings. And then some of those guys need repetitions in the middle of a game, so if we need them to come out of the bullpen, pinch hit, pinch run, play defense, they've been there. And we were able to combine both of those things into one game, which is even more important on the rest side because of the Thursday start to the series.”

There seems to be little for Tennessee to play for entering the final weekend.

UT has won the SEC regular-season title, the SEC East, secured the No. 1 overall seed in the SEC Tournament and has all but locked up the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Yet that’s hardly the story. The truth of the matter is that all of these games matter. They may not actually be playing for anything specific over these last four games, but with Hoover and the Big Dance right around the corner, Vitello wants to make sure his group is playing their best baseball.

“A few guys have kind of gone through some stuff and I think have come out on the other side stronger,” Vitello said. “I definitely feel good about that.”

“I mean (lefty pitcher Will Mabrey) is back to looking like himself. C-Mo (freshman infielder Christian Moore) went through like a very brief period where he was slamming his bat for the first time ever.”

Mabrey used the midweek contest to throw a 1-2-3 inning that featured two strikeouts, appearing to get back on track after some recent rocky outings, while Moore hit a three-run home run to break out of a slump, respectively.

That’s what Vitello is looking to accomplish this weekend: everyone playing their best baseball as the most important time of the year arrives.

“I think we put some things in the rearview mirror for us the last two weekends,” Vitello explained. “So for us it should be about going down there and just trying to play good ball.”

“You look forward to getting back on the road and doing better than we did last time we went on the road, because it's something that we’d had success with before (losing to Kentucky). You just look forward to road trips, in general, but this one's kind of different. You're gonna go to Hoover after that. And again, school's out, you don't have that weighing you down. We’ve become a close-knit team. So I think they'll look forward to just being around each other.”

Tennessee faces a different challenge on the road this weekend than it has all season.

Mississippi State is the defending National Champions, but are struggling mightily this season as its pitching staff has an ERA of 6.88 throughout SEC play, third-worst in the conference.

The Bulldogs have been swept by Florida and Texas A&M their last two weekends. They’ve won one of their last four SEC series and enter the weekend last in the SEC West as a result.

“I feel like we’re in a good position,” Vols third baseman Trey Lipscomb said. “They’re going to give us their best game and we’re going to give them our best game. We’ll go from there.”

“It’s that time of the season where you know what works and what doesn’t work. So do what works and you’ll be alright.”

The Vols trip to Starkville will be different though in the sense that it’ll be the biggest crowd they’ve played in front of all season.

Mississippi State’s Dudy Noble Field is the largest on-campus facility in college baseball. It sits 15,000 and routinely has crowds well over 14,000.

Of the top 25 all-time college baseball on-campus attendances, Dudy Noble Field finds itself on the list 19 times, most notably owning the all-time on-campus attendance record of 15,586 on April 12, 2014.

“We went down to Ole Miss and that environment was crazy, so honestly any place in the SEC — even Knoxville — is going to be crazy, so just expect their best and play your best,” Lipscomb said. “Control what you can control and it’ll be alright.”

“We don’t stress a lot when we go out there. We like to go out there and have fun. As long as we go out there and have fun we should be alright.”

“Just keep the same mentality we’ve had all year and it doesn’t rally matter who you’re playing or when you’re playing,” left fielder Seth Stephenson added. “I feel like we’re in a good spot. I think our confidence is up, our bats are hot, everyone is making plays.”

First pitch is set for 7 p.m. ET for both game one and game two. The series finale on Saturday afternoon is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. ET.