Nichols: Like The Goonies, Vitello’s Vols ‘Never Say Die’

So far this season, we’ve seen that the 2022 Tennessee baseball team is comprised of several notable characteristics.

Excellent, timely hitting. Equally non-hittable pitching. Enough grit and cockiness to wrap the Sunsphere in swagger. So much history made that the Tennessee public school system might consider adding a chapter about these Vols in future textbooks. And an enjoyment of the hatred that burns through other teams when the Vols continue to romp all over them without apologizing for it.

But there is also another trait that defines these Vols, and it’s been quietly present in the four-plus years since Tony Vitello arrived in June of 2017: a consistently resilient attitude.

With or without Vitello in the dugout (since UT went 4-0 during his suspension-induced absence), Tennessee is the baseball equivalent of rubber: always bouncing back, ever elastic, until the last possible out has been recorded and the final score has been cleared off the board.

“Coach V always says the game’s not over until the umpires are in the locker room and they stay there,” said Christian Moore. “So we kind of live by that. “When we’re away, we get nine at-bats. And we’re going to grind out every at-bat.”

In other words? Until the game is officially over, the Vols are college baseball’s mega-talented equivalent of The Goonies — they never say die.

Moore would know, what with he being the Vols’ Sunday afternoon catalyst at Florida via a game-tying two-RBI single in the top of the ninth and a game-winning home run in the top of the 11th, with the only Vol offense before such hysteria coming on a Drew Gilbert triple and a Trey Lipscomb RBI groundout to put the Vols on the board in the seventh.

So would Jorel Ortega, who started the ninth-inning rally for Tennessee — no one on, two outs, trailing by three, and this doesn’t sound good, does it? — with a solo homer in the top half.

So would Redmond Walsh, who slammed the door on Florida in the next half-inning and kept the Gators at bay through extras, and Christian Scott, who clinched the game-ending out by robbing Jud Fabian of a homer at the wall in left on a grab that ended up at No. 4 on SportsCenter’s “Top 10 Plays” by Monday morning.

“A tremendous character win by our guys, and kind of bailed me out because I would have looked like a clown coming back and ruining things the way the team’s been playing,” Vitello said.

“The players played well today, but more than anything, they fought well,” he added. “And they seemed to fight together, too. Some guys were called upon that aren’t everyday players and did very, very well for us.”

One prime example of that? Logan Steenstra, who made what Vitello called the “play of the game” when he converted a sharp throw from Ortega into an out after it looked as if the Gators would reach on a bunt in the ninth.

“Maybe the best play of the game was him sticking his nose in that bunt play at first base,” said Vitello of Steenstra, who came in at second that inning. “Jorel makes a good throw, but it was a bang-bang play with contact. And Steenstra made a tough play. It was what we need out of all of our guys, to be tough, and it was what we got today.”

Steenstra is also a perfect example of Tennessee’s depth, as Vitello added that he is “fully capable of being an everyday SEC player — but he’s not on this particular team as of right now.”

The same could be said plenty of times last year about Lipscomb — who helped kickstart the Vols Sunday and who is now tied with Tim Elko for the conference lead at 16 home runs per season — or Scott or Moore, each of whom made a game-saving play against the Gators.

And, after each of those players waited for his turn, each one got his shot and made the most of it.

So has Blade Tidwell, who Vitello said has “changed everything” since he rejoined a pitching staff that is easily the best in the country to this point.

Up and down the lineup, in the bullpen or in the dugout, and, quite simply, in total — Tennessee has the depth and talent to overcome any obstacle it faces. 

Those aspects are most certainly why this team leads the rest of the conference by a whopping six games in the standings. They’re also why the Vols would have to lose six of their last 12 conferences games — provided, of course, that the same Arkansas team that just lost a series to Texas A&M happened to win out the rest of the way — for Tennessee not to claim at least a share of the regular season conference title, per Ryan Schumpert of Rocky Top Insider.

But the most vital ingredients for this team can’t be found in any stat sheet, game program or — perhaps one day — in any history book.

Instead, the Vols rely most often on a pure, gritty refusal to lose, pairing that with the hate-drawing swagger that led Evan Russell and Kirby Connell to don Gator football helmets when they went into Ben Hill Griffin Stadium to shower on Sunday afternoon.

Will Billy Napier use that stunt as fuel as he and Florida try to make Tennessee’s football team pay for its baseball team’s antics? Undoubtedly.

Rest assured, though, that no one — even in a football-crazy city like Knoxville, even with the Heisman buzz Hendon Hooker is getting, even with the jaw-dropping offensive numbers that could be expounded upon this coming season — is thinking about what happens in a few months.

All that matters right now is that this baseball team continues to embody the same simple mentality as those crazy kids on a treasure hunt in everyone’s favorite movie from 1985: “Never Say Die.”