Tennessee Baseball remains undefeated after a great weekend in Houston.

This year’s version of Tennessee Baseball made it clear before the season started that they were ready to turn the page from last year’s National Championship. It’s not easy for a program fresh off a natty to live up to expectations the following year, but 11 games in this Tennessee team is doing just that.

Under Tony Vitello, Tennessee’s 2 main calling cards have been home runs and elite pitching. Tennessee leads the country in team ERA and strikeouts per 9 innings. They also come in 2nd in the country in home runs. (Here's a fun fact: ETSU is first in home runs, so shout out East Tennessee.) This team has also added a noticeable prowess for drawing walks. I know as well as anyone that some of these stats are misleading because of the competition Tennessee has faced so far, but over the weekend in Houston against their first quality competition this year, they didn’t miss a beat.

Tennessee played Oklahoma State Friday night and came away with a 5-2 win. Saturday, the Vols outclassed Rice and won 13-3. Tennessee then defeated Arizona 5-1 on Sunday. 23 runs scored and only 6 runs allowed sounds like a pretty successful weekend to me. Tennessee smashed 10 home runs over the 3-game trip and flexed their muscle away from LNS for the first time this season.

The pitching MVP for Tennessee has been Liam Doyle. The transfer from Ole Miss has racked up 34 strikeouts in 14.2 innings while only giving up one run. In other words, only 10 of his outs recorded haven’t been via the strikeout. The hitting MVP has been Gavin Kilen. The Louisville transfer has made an immediate impact in Tennessee’s lineup, batting .486 with 7 home runs and 17 RBIs.

Tennessee has 6 games left before conference play starts. 6 more games to get this team as ready as they can be to play in the toughest conference in college baseball. However, with Tony Vitello leading the way, I am not concerned in the slightest.