How to Watch: No. 14 Alabama Baseball vs. No. 5 Tennessee
After 17 games in which the Alabama baseball team went a strong 15-2, conference play is upon the No. 14 Crimson Tide.
Up first is a date with the Tennessee Volunteers at Sewell-Thomas Stadium. The three-game weekend set represents the first time the programs have met since the 2022 regular season.
Friday's series opener, set for 6 p.m. CT, will be on SEC Network+. Games two and three, on Saturday (7 p.m. CT) and Sunday (1 p.m. CT) will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
It's a huge first test in league play for Crimson Tide head coach Rob Vaughn, whose inaugural season at the helm in Tuscaloosa has already featured games against some of the sport's best programs. He and Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello go back to Vaughn's high school playing days.
No. 5 Tennessee (17-1) has emerged as one of the dominant programs in a conference which has many of them. The Volunteers ran the show in the SEC in 2022, following that up with an appearance in the College World Series in 2023. To get to Omaha, Tennessee defeated Southern Miss, the same team the Crimson Tide just played against in its most recent contest.
In April 2022, Alabama took a lengthy win streak and a ranking into Knoxville and Lindsey Nelson Stadium. The Crimson Tide took the first game of an intense, highly emotional series before falling in games two and three. Vitello was tossed early in the second meeting between the sides for contact with an umpire after the top-ranked Volunteers took umbrage with Alabama celebrating its upset win the night before.
Current Wake Forest flamethrower Chase Burns took the loss in that Friday game. Junior ace Ben Hess will toe the rubber against AJ Causey in the first pitching matchup of the weekend.
