Before Tennessee’s offensive power exploded in April, helping its offense rank second in the SEC in home runs and third in runs scored, the Vols were a grind it out baseball team that worked competitive at-bats and found enough run support to win games.

Saturday, Tennessee’s power hitting— and hitting overall— struggled, tallying zero long balls and just three doubles. The late winter/early spring Vols showed up, finding ways to produce enough runs in the 4-2 super regional series opening win over LSU.

“It shows that you can win games in any situation,” Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello said. “It’s really fun for the offense to explode and the fans to go nuts and win by eight or nine runs but it hasn’t happened often, especially early in the year the kids had to learn a way to find a way. It came in a variety of ways at home and on the road. In your utility belt when you need something we’re fortunate enough to have a diverse portfolio that you can go to when it relates to finding a way to win a game.”

Tennessee had hit 56 of its 92 home runs in its last 30 games entering today but Rucker’s double off the wall was the only ball that the Vols hit that was almost a home run.

It’s not that Tennessee’s contact hitting was much better, the Vols tallied just six hits for the second straight game. Before the regional final against Liberty, Tennessee hadn’t tallied six or less hits since April 20 against Tennessee Tech.

The Vols offense found a way, however, Jordan Beck doubled in the second inning and came home thanks to a pair of groundouts.

LSU starter Ma’Khail Hilliard was dominant in five innings but once the Tigers went to the bullpen the Vols found a way to strike.

Max Ferguson fell down 0-2 before fighting back to work a one-out walk. Rucker moved him to third on a double down the line and Gilbert drove him in with a ground ball to third. While the hit was going to score Ferguson no matter what, it should have been out number two at first. Instead, Drew Bianco tried to tag Rucker before throwing to first, allowing Gilbert to reach safely.

Lipcius gave Tennessee the lead with a fielder’s choice and Beck, who looked much better Saturday after a rough regional, singled to right field to give the Vols a 4-2 lead it wouldn’t relinquish.

It wasn’t the offense’s best game but the pitching picked them up, starting with Chad Dallas.

“It all started with Chad,” Vitello said of the win.

Dallas retired the first four batters he faced before Cade Doughty took him deep in the pouring rain to give LSU an early lead. The game would go into a 50 minute rain delay before the start of the third inning but Dallas stayed in the game and looked even better afterwards.

“Going through the rain delay was a little different,” Dallas said. “You sometimes wait through long innings but those aren’t as long as this rain delay was. Like coach Vitello said, I felt like it was my game to continue. In my heart and in my mind there was nothing that was going to take me out of that game— no matter how long it was. As soon as I saw it was a delay I went up to coach Anderson and asked him when I can go down to the cages to stay stretched out. It was just the competitor inside of me that didn’t want to get taken out of the game.”

Dallas isn’t the SEC’s most talented Friday night starter, nor is he Tennessee’s most talented pitcher, but the redshirt-junior turned in one of his best performances when the lights were the brightest— which he’s often done.

The Orange, Texas native turned in six innings of two run baseball— one earned— while allowing just six hits and no walks and recording a career high 12 strikeouts.

“I can’t coach pitchers like Frank (Anderson) but you go out on the road and scout them and I did coach pitchers for a few years,” Vitello said. “You kind of can see when a guy is locked in to the point where it’s almost like he’s not going to let anything happen that he doesn’t want to. Chad had that look to him and obviously he’s not invincible and he’s facing a really good team but he just had that look of determination. … He just kind of had that look like he was in get it done mode tonight and he certainly was and once again our guys followed.”

Sean Hunley did what Sean Hunley does, throwing three scoreless innings to earn his ninth save of the season. The senior made it look easy in the seventh and the eighth inning before running into trouble in the ninth. With two outs and a hit almost certainly tying the game, Hunley remained cool, winning a nine pitch battle with 3-2 strikeout of Jordan Thompson.

In four games this year against LSU, Tennessee is 4-0 with a combined winning margin of six runs. With LSU ace Landon Marceuax on the bump for LSU Sunday the Vols might need to find another way to win a tight game.

For a program that is in uncharted territory, that’s nothing new for a team that’s won games in every fashion from the opening weekend on.