Jorel Ortega Delivers Another Great Outing as Vols Down Bellarmine 9-3 in Midweek Battle

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.– The No. 1 Tennessee BaseVols achieved a 9-3 victory over the Bellarmine Knights in Lindsey Nelson Stadium on Tuesday, improving to a 34-3 record. 

Tennessee and Bellarmine were held without a run until the fourth inning when Knights' pitcher Matt Craven walked a batter and hit a batter before an error caused the bases to be loaded. Logan Steenstra then dribbled an RBI groundout to score Lipcius and score the game's first run. In the fifth inning, the Vols caught fire, recording four hits and the same amount of runs to take a 5-0 lead after five frames.

Tennessee's fifth inning featured a bases-clearing double from Kyle Booker followed by an RBI double from Logan Steenstra to give the Vols a 5-0 lead. Jorel Ortega and Jordan Beck also recorded hits in the inning. 

The Vols scored a run in each of the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, scoring two in the seventh. In the seventh, Luc Lipcius drilled his first triple of the season and eventually scored on a wild pitch. Ortega continued his hot streak at the plate by leaving the yard in the eighth inning (eighth of the season) and finishing the night 4-5 at the plate. 

Ortega, who has been on fire in every facet of the game, noted that he has just kept grinding.

"I've just kept on grinding.," Ortega said about his recent success. "Even the best guys in the big leagues go through slumps. I'm not perfect, and this is a pretty hard game... I just keep my head up and keep on working on trying to get better at things I wasn't good at. Just staying the course and it's paying off." 

With Ortega's four-hit night, the sophomore has recorded four hits in back-to-back games and at least two hits in four consecutive games. Going back to Tennessee's midweek game against Tennessee Tech, the Puerto Rican native has a hit streak of five games, the longest of his career. 

Zander Sechrist resumed his starting midweek role for the first time in three weeks on the mound. The sophomore dealt 4.1 perfect innings, throwing a pair of strikeouts and retiring all 13 batters he faced on only 40 pitches. 

"I'm always a guy that works pretty fast," Sechrist said following the game regarding his quick innings. "I noticed the clock on the scoreboard, and I was like 'We got through five innings in like an hour and 20 minutes.' That's the way Frank [Anderson] likes to keep things, and that's how I like to run things." 

Sechrist also got the win for the Vols, improving to 3-0 on the season with a 1.78 ERA.

"It's awesome," Ortega noted on how it feels to play behind Sechrist. "That's a guy that's gonna pound strikes every day. And that's what you want out of a pitcher."

Despite Sechrist not allowing a baserunner in first 4.1 innings, acting head coach Josh Elander decided to pull him in favor of relief pitcher Hollis Fanning, as they wanted to keep Sechrist at a certain pitch count and get other guys time on the mound. 

"It was tough," Elander said on the decision to pull Sechrist. "Honestly, we didn't want to. He was throwing strikes and attacking all quadrants of the zone. He was really good and was painting X's on both sides of the plate. But Tony, Frank and I talked about it this morning, and we had a pitch count in mind. It would've been nice to leave him out there a little bit longer, but we wanted to make sure we got plenty of guys reps tonight."

Fanning did a fine job relieving Sechrist, retiring two of three batters to end the fifth inning. 

But the mound performance for UT took a turn for the worse in the sixth inning. Freshman J.D. McCracken had a forgettable collegiate debut, giving up all three of the Knights' runs. 

Ethan Smith relieved McCracken, eventually walking a batter to load the bases before getting pulled in favor of Mark McLaughlin with two outs. 

McLaughlin delivered Tennessee's biggest strikeout of the evening to end the sixth and strand the bases. The junior also threw a solid seventh inning before the trio of Kirby Connell, Drew Patterson and Gavin Brasosky closed out the game. Each pitcher allowed a hit but ultimately kept the Knights at three runs to guide Tennessee to the victory. 

After dropping two straight to Tennessee Tech and Alabama last week, the Vols have rebounded with three straight wins, two of which secured the series win against the Crimson Tide last weekend. 

Up next for the No. 1 Vols is a road weekend series in Gainesville against SEC East foe Florida (23-14, 6-9 SEC). The first pitch on Friday is set for 6:30 p.m. ET. 

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Photo Credit: Jake Nichols