OXFORD, Miss. – Liam Doyle stole the show in his return to Oxford with a dazzling performance on the mound to lead No. 4/5 Tennessee to a 3-2 win over No. 6/6 Ole Miss on Friday night at Swayze Field.
The Vols notched win No. 30 on the year after pulling ahead 3-0 before hanging on for the series-opening victory in Oxford.
Doyle nearly went the distance, tossing a career-high 8.1 innings before the duo of Nate Snead and Dylan Loy recorded the game’s final two outs in the bottom of the ninth to slam the door.
The junior southpaw tied a career high with 14 strikeouts and allowed just two runs on thee hits and two walks to earn the win and improve to 6-1 on the year.
Neither team was able to string together much offense, but UT did enough in the early going to build a lead and stave off a ninth inning rally from the Rebels (26-8, 8-5 SEC), who had the tying run in scoring position and the potential winning run on base with two outs.
The Vols struck first after executing some good situational baseball in the second inning. Manny Marin drove in a pair of runs with a double down the left-field line after back-to-back walks to lead off the inning by Andrew Fischer and Dalton Bargo before a sacrifice bunt by Reese Chapman put both runners in scoring position for the freshman second baseman.
The Big Orange increased their lead to three on a Hunter Ensley RBI groundout in the fifth inning following another leadoff walk by Rebels’ starter Hunter Elliott and a double off the bat of Gavin Kilen. Tennesee made Elliott pay for his four free passes as all three runs he surrendered reached base via walks. The redshirt junior lefthander was stuck with his first loss of the season despite allowing just three runs on two hits over four innings.
Ole Miss tallied its only two runs of the night on a two-run homer by catcher Austin Fawley in the bottom of the fifth inning. Doyle rebounded well from giving up the home run, retiring the next eight batters he faced and 11 of the next 12 before issuing a one-out walk in the bottom of the ninth.
Kilen Makes Return to Starting Lineup
For the first time since March 18 against ETSU, Kilen was back in the starting lineup and was the only Vol to finish with multiple hits in the game, going 2-for-4 with a single and a double as the designated hitter.
Up Next
Tennessee will attempt to secure the series with a win on Saturday evening as the Vols and Rebels square off in game two of the weekend set at 5 p.m. ET on SEC Network+ and the ESPN app.
