Tennessee baseball just hits dingers. The Vols broke yet another single season program record on Sunday by blasting the 159 home run of the season during the 12-3 win over Southern Miss on Sunday from Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
“It’s got to be a pretty good feeling,” skipper Tony Vitello said over the weekend when asked about the long ball. “I didn’t feel very often and it’s kind of a moment to celebrate, but I think that’s a byproduct of a lot of work that goes on in the cage with Coach [Josh] Elander and then our guys are big and strong.”
The record-breaking blast came from the bat of catcher Cal Stark. It was his second home run of the game, his ninth of the season and the fifth of the day for the Volunteers. Earlier in the ballgame, Stark homered to give Tennessee the lead. Kavares Tears’ three-run homer handed the Vols a second lead in the sixth inning before Dean Curley and Dylan Dreiling’s latter multi-run home runs were welcomed insurance.
UT has an impressive two players with 20+ home runs on the season, five with at least 15 home runs and seven total with 10 or more long balls. Stark sits right on the ledge of double-digit homers as he’s got nine on the year following his multi-homer day. Hunter Ensley has also tallied nine homers on the year.
“There’s been growth there for four years of his college career. It is why we recruited him – is what his junior college coaches had to say about him. It’s a great program he comes from and we have a good relationship with those guys and they were his biggest advertisers,” Vitello said on Stark. “One of those things was he’s going to meet challenges head on and so we could dissect why he’s gotten better offensively or why he is gotten better over the course of four years.”
Christian Moore leads the way with an astounding 29 bombs. Billy Amick sits in second-place, despite missing eight games with injury this season, with 21 on the campaign. Dylan Dreiling is third with 18 while Tears is fourth with 18. Blake Burke has totaled 17 home runs on the season while Dean Curley has recorded 11.
The 2024 Vols now sit on top with 159 home runs in counting while the record-setting 2022 squad tapped out at 158 bombs. Tennessee’s 2023 College World Series team combined for 126 homers while the 1998 squad contributed 107. In 2021, UT registered 98 home runs while 2009’s team added 87.
The better program home run hitting teams are in direct correlation with Tony Vitello arriving in Knoxville.
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