Vols Outright Win Regular Season SEC Title

The 2022 Tennessee Baseball Volunteers have won the regular season SEC title.

With Tennessee’s 9-2 win over Georgia and Vanderbilt’s 9-6 series-opening win in extra innings over Arkansas on Friday, the Vols have won the conference for the first time since 1995 and for the fourth time in program history. 

Coming into the weekend, Tennessee needed a combination of three involving wins of their own or Arkansas losses. With the Vols’ back-to-back wins to achieve the series win over Georgia and Arkansas’ day one loss, Tennessee has the conference wrapped up heading into Saturday.

Tennessee's series win comes at the hands of an Arkansas loss, who were the regular-season SEC champions a year ago. 

Tony Vitello is the third Tennessee baseball head coach to win the regular season SEC title, joining Rod Delmonico, who coached the 1994 and 1995 Tennessee Baseball SEC champions, and S.W. Anderson, who coached the SEC champs in the 1951 Tennessee Vols.

Tennessee’s 2022 SEC title is just another accolade for the Vols who continue to dominate this season, making history at every turn. 

Vitello touched on what it meant for the program to win the SEC, and Tennessee's skipper described as simply checking another box this season. 

"I think at the end of the 30 games, you want to have checked five or six things," Vitello said following the Vols' game two win over Georgia. "So, if you can get to co or outright SEC champions, you've checked almost all of them, and the outright thing is a little bit of a separating factor. With everything our teams are trying to do in our league, [winning the SEC] means we've checked a lot of boxes." 

While Vitello recognizes winning the conference is a great thing for the team, he pointed out something else he appreciates more.

"We won each series here for the first time since we've had five series. I say we as in Vol Nation. Today, our fans came back from the rain and were here every series this year. I'm really proud of that. They're doing it, but it was a group effort for Vol Nation."

Tennessee will look to continue their success in game three against Georgia in Lindsey Nelson Stadium. SEC Network+ will have the stream, and first pitch is set for 1 p.m. ET. 

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