No. 1/2 Tennessee was victorious in its Southeastern Conference opener, defeating No. 6/7 Florida, 5-3, in a tightly-contested contest on Friday night in front of a sold-out Lindsey Nelson Stadium crowd.
A three-run fifth inning proved pivotal as it gave the Vols a 4-1 lead after the Gators tied the game with a Blake Cyr solo home run in the fourth inning.
UT (18-0, 1-0 SEC) loaded the bases with no outs to set the stage for Hunter Ensley, who drove in two runs with a double to right field.
Gavin Kilen scampered home on a wild pitch later in the inning for what proved to be the game-winning run.
Florida (16-3, 0-1 SEC) answered right back with two runs in the top of the sixth after starting the inning with four straight singles to cut its deficit to one, but the Vols punched right back in the bottom of the inning with another run on a Kilen sacrifice fly to score
Dean Curley, who tripled one at-bat prior.
Curley was the only UT player to finish with multiple hits on the night, going 2-for-4 with two runs scored. Kilen, Ensley,
Andrew Fischer,
Manny Marin and
Jay Abernathy all added hits, as well.
Liam Doyle outdueled Florida ace Liam Peterson in Friday's highly anticipated battle of aces, allowing just one run on three hits while striking out six batters over 4.2 innings.
Peterson was solid as well, racking up eight strikeouts before running into trouble in the fifth inning, where he was pulled before recording an out. The sophomore righthander suffered his first loss of the year to fall to 4-1 after giving up four runs in six hits and three walks.
Junior righthander Nate Snead was nails out of the bullpen for the Big Orange, tossing 3.2 shutout innings to ice the game away and pick up his second save of the year. The Wisconsin native struck out four and allowed just two hits to stifle a talented Gators' lineup.
Snead entered the game in a bases-loaded jam in the top of the sixth and immediately got a ground ball that resulted in an inning-ending double play to end the threat and keep Tennessee's lead intact.
A pair of true freshmen got things going offensively for Tennessee in the early going when Marin doubled with one out in the bottom of the second and came around to score on a two-out RBI single by Abernathy to open the scoring.
The Vols will look to claim a series win when they square off with the Gators in game two on Saturday afternoon. First pitch for Saturday's contest, which was originally scheduled for 6 p.m., has been moved up to 3:30 p.m. due to expected inclement weather in the area.
Fans can watch the start of Saturday's game on SEC Network+ and the ESPN app before it moves over to the SEC Network around 4 p.m.