Tony Vitello recaps win over Wake Forest baseball in Knoxville Regional
Tony Vitello recaps win over Wake Forest baseball in Knoxville Regional
No. 14 national seed Tennessee (46-17) defeated No. 2 regional seed Wake Forest (39-22), 11-5, on Monday in Game 7 of the NCAA Tournament Knoxville Regional. The Vols played their final game of the season at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
Tennessee will next face No. 3 national seed Arkansas (46-13) in the Fayetteville Super Regional.
Eighth-year head coach Tony Vitello recapped the Vols' win over Wake Forest on Monday.
"It's tough to describe the energy that was in the building tonight," Vitello said. "It was a little bit different. Maybe they listened to (Andrew) Fischer. I don't know if the numbers were bigger because it was a Monday, but the energy was insane. Our guys' response to being down was equally insane. The biggest thing was guys doing things they struggled throughout the year doing well, one through nine, and then our guys that are just willing to take the ball.
"It is a weird deal on this staff to have that many guys that want the ball, no matter what day it is or what the circumstances are. (Nate) Snead was willing to go 100 pitches today. I feel for the guys that didn't get action because everybody was available. Marcus Phillips, it would have had to be like, I don't know, even (Ben) Martin was joking around about being out there. I know it's in a unique way because Frank (Anderson) is pretty hard on these guys and he gets results out of it. There's a lot of trust and a lot of love there between the pitchers and coach A, and of course, there's other people that that help out, too. Maybe that's got something to do with it, that they want to pitch for the boys and not just themselves, which I greatly appreciate and benefited from today as well."
PHOTOS: Tony Vitello through the years
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