College Baseball
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College baseball week in review: Tennessee asserts dominance, sweeps Florida

Tennessee left little doubt that it’s the best team in college baseball after five weekends of action. The Vols, the only undefeated team in the nation, swept Florida in Knoxville to improve to 20-0 overall and 3-0 in the SEC.

Tennessee won the opener 5-3 on Friday night in a battle of aces named Liam. Florida’s Liam Peterson was roughed up for the first time this season, giving up four earned runs in four innings. Tennessee’s Liam Doyle was effective, giving up only three hits and one run, but couldn’t get out of the fifth due to a high pitch count (105).

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On Saturday, the Vols broke open a tight game with nine runs in the bottom of the seventh to record a 10-0 run-rule victory. Marcus Phillips, a converted reliever, was brilliant, allowing only five hits while striking out seven with one walk in seven innings.

On Sunday, Tennessee rallied from a 4-1 deficit in the fourth to complete the sweep with a 7-4 victory.

There was a bright spot for Florida. Freshman Aidan King was terrific on Saturday, allowing only four hits and one run in six innings. In seven games (two starts), the right-hander from Jacksonville has a 0.81 ERA and has allowed only 13 hits in 22.1 innings.

Around the horn

Alabama made a strong statement to open SEC play by sweeping Texas A&M in College Station. There were several standouts for the Crimson Tide, who are 20-1 overall.

  • All-America shortstop Justin Lebron was pulled from Friday’s game due to an illness after going 0-4. On Saturday, he went 3-4 and hit his 12th home run of the season.
  • Third baseman Will Hodo started off the Tide’s scoring on Friday night with a two-run home run in the top of the second and ended it on Saturday with a grand slam in the top of the ninth inning that broke a 2-2 tie. Hodo is hitting .395 with six home runs and 24 RBIs.
  • Redshirt sophomore Riley Quick, who missed most of last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, allowed only one hit in five shutout innings on Saturday.
  • Senior Bobby Alcock was equally effective on Sunday, allowing four hits and no runs in seven innings as the Tide completed the sweep with a 2-0 win.

It took longer than many expected, but we finally got a glimpse of the prodigious power of Stanford slugger Rintaro Sasaki — twice on Saturday and once on Sunday.

Sasaki, the much-hyped freshman from Japan, got off to a nice start in 2025, hitting .313 through his first 15 collegiate games. But, rather surprisingly, he had yet to hit a home run and had only two extra-base hits. That changed on Saturday, when he blasted two homers in the second game of the Cardinal’s doubleheaders sweep over Duke in Palo Alto.

His first, a solo shot, gave Stanford a 7-1 lead in the fifth inning.

Two innings later, he ended the game with a three-run homer that gave the Cardinal an 11-1 run-rule victory.

Sasaki hit another home run on Sunday in Stanford’s 10-5 win. The Cardinal are 15-3 overall and 5-1 in their first season in the ACC

Kansas powered its way into the NCAA record book on Wednesday afternoon by hitting five consecutive home runs in a 29-1 win over Minnesota at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

The Jayhawks have been one of the early-season surprises. They are 17-3 overall and 2-1 in the Big 12 after taking two of three from Baylor in Lawrence over the weekend.

Dominic Voegele, a preseason All-Big 12 selection, had his best start of the season on Friday night, allowing only one earned run and three hits in seven innings.

Wake Forest is 6-0 in the ACC for the first time ever after sweeping Miami in Winston-Salem. The Deacs got another great start from ace Logan Lunceford on Friday night — seven innings, three hits, no runs — and then won two games on Saturday, 5-4 in 10 innings and 12-10 in the nightcap.

But the Demon Deacons have some injury concerns. First baseman Jack Winnay was pulled from Game 2 on Saturday in the third inning, and center fielder Ethan Conrad took himself out of the game after diving for a ball in the top of the fifth.

Miami, meanwhile, dropped to 12-9 overall and 0-3  in the ACC under second-year coach J.D. Arteaga. The Hurricanes host Florida State next weekend and travel to North Carolina in two weeks.

Speaking of Florida State, the Seminoles gave up a total of four runs — none by the three starting pitchers — in a three-game sweep of Boston College in Tallahassee.

Florida State is 18-1 overall.

Jose Cruz Jr. was fired on Thursday, 16 games into his fourth season as the coach at Rice. A three-time All-American with the Owls in the mid-1990s, Cruz was 63-126 at his alma mater, including 2-14 in 2025 at the time of his dismissal.

Rice made the NCAA Tournament in 23 consecutive seasons, from 1995 to 2017, under former coach Wayne Graham, with seven trips to the College World Series and one national championship (2003). Those are the only 23 Regional appearances in program history, and the Owls have not had a winning record since Graham retired following the 2018 season.

Pitching coach Parker Bangs will serve as the interim coach for the remainder of the season.

Western Kentucky is 19-1 after sweeping Tennessee-Martin in Bowling Green, Ky. The Hilltoppers’ only loss was in extra innings, 2-1 on Feb. 24 at Murray State.

WKU is hitting .335 as a team, led by junior outfielder Ryan Wideman at .459.

Marc Rardin is 88-49 in his third season with the Hilltoppers after compiling a 934-252 record in 20 seasons as the coach at Iowa Western Community College.

Arkansas took two of three at Ole Miss to open SEC play, but the Razorbacks’ starting pitching — considered by some to be the best rotation in the nation — struggled a bit.

Zach Root, a transfer from ECU, allowed 10 hits and seven earned runs in three innings in his first Friday night start of the season. Root had allowed only five earned runs in his first four starts.

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On Sunday, Ohio State transfer Landon Beidelschies gave up four hits and four earned runs in 2.1 innings. Gabe Gaeckle, who moved from Friday to Saturday this week, was solid in his start, allowing two hits and one earned run in four innings.

The good news? Arkansas scored 30 runs in the series. Last season, the Hogs topped 20 runs in an SEC series only twice — 23 vs. Missouri and 21 vs. Mississippi State.

We have an early candidate for play of the year, delivered by Kentucky third baseman Patrick Herrera in the seventh inning of the Wildcats’ 10-7 win at Georgia on Saturday afternoon.

And finally …

• Louisville opened its ACC slate with an impressive home series win over North Carolina. The teams split a doubleheader on Friday, and the Cards won the finale on Sunday 5-0 thanks to a combined one-hitter from Peter Michael, Wyatt Danilowicz and Tucker Biven.

• Texas and Oklahoma both enjoyed successful SEC debuts. The Longhorns swept Mississippi State in Starkville, while the Sooners took two of three from South Carolina in Columbia.

• Arizona State beat TCU 26-9 on Saturday afternoon in Fort Worth. The 26 runs were the most ever scored against TCU and were the most by ASU in a conference game since 2000. The Sun Devils won the series, two games to one.

• Georgia Tech reliever Mason Patel finally allowed a run. The senior right-hander had a 0.00 ERA through 22 innings before giving up one run in the top of the seventh of the Yellow Jackets’ 11-1 win over Pittsburgh on Saturday. Patel has a 0.39 ERA with nine hits allowed in 23 innings.

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• NC State had its 11-game winning streak snapped on Sunday with a 20-8 loss to Virginia Tech. The Wolfpack got off to a slow start — losing five of their first eight —  but have rebounded nicely and are 14-6 overall.

• Arizona won its first series in the Big 12, sweeping Cincinnati by a combined score of 33-6 in Tucson. The Wildcats stumbled out of the gate — losing three straight at the Shriners Children’s Showdown in Arlington, Texas — but are 15-1 since, with the only loss to No. 1 Tennessee in Houston.

• There are only three winless teams: Norfolk State (0-16), Harvard (0-12) and Dartmouth (0-8). UMES, which went winless in 2024, is 3-16.

• UCF second baseman Edian Espinal, a transfer from Chipola (Fla.) College, leads the nation in hitting at .527 in 17 games. No other player is above .485.

(Photo of Liam Doyle: Angelina Alcantar / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

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