No. 1 Tennessee baseball beat South Carolina 4-1 in the series finale on Saturday afternoon at Lindsey Nelson Stadium to round out the regular season with its third sweep of SEC play.
The win, along with a little help from Vanderbilt, who upset No. 2 Kentucky, 12-4, secured Tennessee a share of the 2024 SEC regular-season title.
Tennessee entered the final day of the season a game behind Kentucky in the SEC standings, needing to complete the sweep of South Carolina while Vanderbilt avoided being swept in Lexington.
It’s the second time in the last three seasons that the Vols have won at least a share of the SEC regular-season title and it’s the fifth time in program history that it’s done so. Tennessee last won it in 2022, while the last time UT won it prior to Tony Vitello’s tenure was in 1995.
“I’m proud of our guys. There wasn’t a lot of chatter about any of that stuff going on. I didn’t hear any scores or anything going like that. The guys were just focused on the task at hand. And if you do that, if you have the right approach, more times than not, the result will work itself out.”
Tennessee also won the SEC East in the final year of the division’s existence with its win over South Carolina and the Kentucky loss. UT has now won the East three out of the last four years and nine times in program history. It last won the division before Vitello in 1997.
“It takes a village, especially if you’re kind of coming from– we’re pretty blessed, so there’s no sympathy needed – but it’s not like we have the biggest stadium or the best tradition or this or that,” Vitello said. “In order to make progress, like I said, it takes a village and there’s an awful lot of people that have helped.
“We appreciate that. We recognize that. We don’t take it for granted and it’s nice when the guys can celebrate it.”
Here are our takeaways from Tennessee’s (46-10, 22-8) win over South Carolina (33-21, 13-17 SEC) in game three to complete the sweep.