KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — No. 16 Tennessee baseball is looking to get a series win this weekend against No. 5 Arkansas on the road.
The Vols sit at 5-7 in conference play and are coming off a series loss to No. 3 Florida followed by a non-conference midweek 14-2 win over Eastern Kentucky. The Razorbacks are atop the SEC West standings with a record of 8-4 and played in SEC play last when they beat Ole Miss in a series this past weekend.
Tennessee ranks second in the nation in Earned Run Average with a 2.99 ERA. The Vols currently rank tenth in the nation in home runs. Five Vols batters are hitting over .300. Blake Burke leads the team with a .333 BA. Christian Moore is batting .320, Jared Dickey is hitting .314, Dylan Dreiling is batting .311 and Hunter Ensley is hitting .208.
Arkansas has four players batting over .300 and one batting over .400. Jace Bohrofen leads the team with a batting average of .418. Jared Wegner .is batting.351, Kendall Diggs and Tavian Josenberger are batting .347 and Peyton Stovall is batting .302.
\Vols head coach Tony Vitello said he hopes his team will be loose heading into this series, but to do so they will need to eliminate off-field distractions.
"It's already hard enough, this game, and then you do it at the highest amateur level in our league, now it's super hard," he said. "So why do you have to tack on all this other stuff? As a team, it's like fighting this battle, fighting this battle, fighting this battle. Well, Arkansas is pretty good and Baum-Walker Stadium is pretty rowdy. Even more, if you want to cut to the core, do you want to try and find out what our best baseball is or not?"
Vitello said he thinks the team is eager to do that, but needs to be consistent with it.
The team is hoping to handle the raucous road environment through experiences of other tough road tests like playing the No. 1 team in the country.
"I think for us LSU was really important and people might question why that is," Vols second baseman Christian Moore said. "They had a rowdy crowd, and they were throwing stuff on the field. They hit a home run and the stadium is shaking. I think having that in our past will help us this weekend with that and make us more comfortable with knowing how to handle it."
The Vols' first gamer of the series is on Friday at 8 p.m. in Fayetteville, Ark. Game one will be broadcasted on SEC Network. Game two at 7 p.m. on Saturday and game three at 3 p.m. on Sunday will be streamed on SEC Network+.
