In Tennessee baseball's series vs. Auburn last weekend, Liam Doyle was thrown off his typical routine.

He pitched one frame on Friday night before the game was suspended to the following day. On Sunday, he took the ball to finish out game two, that was also suspended a day, and pitched two more innings.

With a weird work load and not a typical rest time between outings, the Vols' ace had all the excuses in the world to not want to pitch the following Friday or make excuses. He didn't do that at all, though, against Vanderbilt.

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That's the aspect Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello wants kids to learn from in the Vols' 3-2 win in Knoxville.

"The bigger story that could really help younger kids, if they follow our program, is tonight was an easy cop out to say I didn’t go through my routine. I didn’t go through my usual deal," Vitello said. "So tonight, to me, is the big story of it’s not a guy that’s looking to make an excuse or look for a reason to not perform his best, which I’m not knocking it, because maybe I would have, too. A lot of kids would use that as a cop out, of I didn’t get to go through all these routines. And kids are well coached now, those routines help you. But at the end of the day, when the umpire or the play ball kid says, ‘play ball,’ you hook it up. I don’t know that we have a better example in our clubhouse that can hook it up than Liam."

This simply comes down to Doyle wanting to win. He doesn't care what it looks like, he'll do what Tennessee needs him to do.

While Vitello won't put him at any serious risk of jeopardizing his career, it does take some bravery from Doyle. He is a top-10 prospect in the upcoming MLB draft. In the past, even at Tennessee, there have been prospects who didn't have this mentality of putting the team first.

Instead, with the cards stacked against him, Doyle put together a brilliant outing despite a blister opening up on his finger late in the game. He went seven innings without giving up a run on three hits, no walks, one hit batter and 12 strikeouts.

"He don’t care. He wants to compete. He does not care, and he’s a good teammate," Vitello said. "I know he spent time at other schools. I kind of said it when we were in Oxford. I kind of get, you know, getting on the guys and stuff like that. But there’s no way anyone that came across him, in high school or anywhere else, doesn’t like the guy. And to your point, it’s great that he was willing to take the ball in that situation. It would have been heartbreaking to have a poor weekend last weekend against Auburn, and him not influence one of the games, because he really kind of didn’t."

Tennessee will now hand the ball to its game two starter, Marcus Phillips, another MLB draft prospect.

First pitch is scheduled for 5 p.m. ET on ESPN.

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