KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee’s bats broke out in a major way in a 13-5 win over No. 22/25 Ole Miss during Sunday’s series finale at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
All 13 of the Volunteers’ runs came via home runs, as the Big Orange blasted a season-high six balls over the wall on Sunday afternoon, led by a pair of multi-homer outings from Blake Grimmer and Levi Clark. Tennessee’s six homers were its most in an SEC game since also hitting six in a 10-1 win against Missouri on April 25, 2024.
Grimmer tied the single-game program record by becoming the eighth player in program history to go deep three times in a game and finished with a career-high six RBIs. He is just the fifth UT player to homer three times in an SEC game, joining Christian Moore (at Kentucky in 2024), Evan Russell (vs. Vanderbilt and LSU in 2021), Todd Helton (vs. Arkansas in 1995) and Rusty Ensor (vs. Vanderbilt in 1981).
Clark also had a monster day from the nine-spot in the batting order, finishing 3-for-4 with a pair of 420-plus foot blasts and four RBIs.
Henry Ford joined the long ball party in the eighth inning with his team-leading 12th home run of the year, a three-run bomb into the porches. The junior third baseman became the first Vol to record a four-hit game this season, finishing the day 4-for-5 with a pair of runs scored.
The trio of Grimmer, Clark and Ford combined to drive in all 13 of Tennessee’s runs and had 11 of the squad’s 14 hits on the day.
Senior left-hander Evan Blanco turned in his fourth quality start in SEC play, allowing three runs on seven hits over six innings while striking out eight to earn the win.
Brandon Arvidson and Bo Rhudy combined for five strikeouts over the final three innings out of the bullpen.
Stone Lawless returned to the starting lineup for the first time since being injured in the series finale at Vanderbilt on March 29 and scored two runs. Lawless sparked UT’s five-run third inning with a single to right field in his first at-bat of the game.
The Vols (26-14, 8-10 SEC) scored six combined runs in the seventh and eighth innings to put the game away after the Rebels (29-12, 10-8 SEC) had pulled within two on a Tristan Bissetta two-run homer in the top of the seventh.
With the victory, Tennessee improved to 3-3 in Sunday series finales in conference play this season.
UP NEXT: UT opens another week of four home games on Tuesday when it hosts Lipscomb at 6 p.m.
