Tennessee baseball's lone senior, Hunter Ensley, went through Senior Day festivities on Tuesday night.

As the Vols defeated Belmont, Ensley was honored, hit a home run and was pulled from center field to a standing ovation.

Here's everything Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said about the senior after the game.

"It’s great for him. Obviously, we got Colby to go in the game for him. I mean, Colby is a senior, too, he just has a year of eligibility left for extenuating circumstances. Alberto is a senior, too. I don’t know what his future holds or how that will go down next year. We’ve tried to get creative and do something with him but it wasn’t going to work within the rules. My idea, people probably would have lost their minds. I found out last night at dinner that there’s been teams in our league complaining that he takes in-and-out with us. Which I can’t even really fathom or comprehend that statement. But regardless, those two guys are equally special kids but it’s tough to equal Hunter’s tenure here. And, obviously, we have more season to go but it was a day of recognizing him. I thought our people did a great job. Danny (White) is incredibly busy. Especially, there’s a lot of rules in limbo and things like that so he didn’t necessarily have to come over but he went out of his way to come over. So, even just down to those details it was special for Hunter. Hitting a home run ain’t easy. And I know we had more game to play there. We take him out of the game, no one’s going to get made fun of more in the country tonight if we lose that game after he comes out that early. But if I was Hunter, I would want my last at-bat to be a homer, at the very least regular season at-bat here. And if you had asked him if he wants to come out of the game, he’s not coming out of the game. We just decided, as a coaching staff, to do that."

"He’s such a low maintenance kid and such an unselfish kid. If you had asked me before the game, I would have said, it’s not that important. And I was surprised that he did take his time, but because he took his time, it allowed all of us to watch and think about it and he was very smart. It’s Hunter to a tee, because he’s a winner, and everything he does is not irrational. For as competitive as he is, and some of us get a little too fired up, he’s calculated, and the fact he took his time and calculated that moment and enjoyed that moment, I think was the smart thing to do. It was a special thing for him to do and it kind of put it into perspective all of us standing there in the dugout that there’s a lot of time out on that turf that he has put in, and it was his dream to play here and he lived out that dream. I think there’s a lot of people that should be envious. I am."

"I thought you were going to say something else. We could go down the negative road, but we’ll stay down the positive, stay on the positive train. I think a deal with Hunter, with him and Drew Gilbert both alike, our other coaches that hit fungos to the outfielders have whispered to each other like, he’s kind of reached the same status as Drew. We have to stop hitting the ball anywhere near the wall, because whether it’s practice or BP, he treats everything the same, and the guy’s going to end up running through the wall. He might hurt our wall more than he hurts himself. In practice moments, that was a conversation we had, and you kind of knew that was going to be the deal. But the defining moment for him, really, was in 2023. We didn’t think we had enough toughness as a team and maybe as coaches, we should have evaluated our talent and known he was the center fielder from day one. But if we date back, you guys were questioning ‘Who’s going to be the next center fielder? Who’s going to replace Drew Gilbert?’ And we didn’t have a definitive answer, but we were in need of more toughness than we were a center fielder. At that moment, he became the guy, and he’s been that guy ever since."

"The respect level the other guys have for him in the dugout has completely changed. Before, he’s a tadpole trying to make his way and make a name for himself and show that he belongs here, but he was a guy who didn’t, he didn’t even present himself the best way he could because he had a football injury. And he didn’t even know it was there. I mean, he probably knew there was some soreness and stuff, but it affected his throwing and affected the rest of his game. So, it was a lot of trials and tribulations at the beginning. And part of it is the root of who he is. He’s a tough kid, and he was that on the football field, so it kind of stunted his growth a little bit right out of the chute. I don’t mean to speak for him, I’m willing to bet from this day in reverse, I don’t know that he’d want to do it any differently. I think there’s a couple mistakes he made along the way, not many of them, some ones we have fun with now, but I don’t know that he would want to do it any differently. And I don’t know that I would want anything different from my end."

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