A disastrous start to the weekend, Vols beat Rebs 12-1

The Ole Miss Rebels were completely dominated from the start in game one against No. 5 Tennessee.

Head football coach Lane Kiffin kicked off the evening with a first pitch of a golf ball. The same infamous one he caught during the football team’s win in Knoxville this past season. He tossed the baseball aside to throw a strike down the middle to dual-sport athlete Tywone Malone. The crowd went wild and his petty (and amazing) antics continued. This was probably the best part of the night for Ole Miss fans.

The Vols pitching was superb, only allowing two hits throughout the entire game, including one solo shot from Tim Elko. There were high hopes for this matchup with two dominant teams facing off. Both had crazy good offenses, and it was expected there would be a high scoring affair on both sides, but Ole Miss was unable to make any magic happen.

Starting pitcher John Gaddis had his very worst performance as a Rebel only getting through 1.1 innings. During those, he allowed six runs on three hits and three walks. This put the Rebels in an obvious hole that was insurmountable.

Dylan Delucia came in to the game in the second inning to relieve Gaddis, and despite giving up five runs, was phenomenal given the circumstances. He went for 6.2 innings allowing five runs on three home runs with six strikeouts.

“We took them lightly,” DeLucia said. “It won’t happen again. We will win tomorrow. I’ll tell you that. It’s one of those things where they play in a small field. We have a bigger field, so we thought we could throw it in to them. It didn’t work out. We missed some spots and that’s why they ended up hitting the homers. Tomorrow will be a lot better.”

The bigger problem seemed to be the Ole Miss offense and its inability to make anything happen. Tennessee’s starting pitcher, Chase Burns, was electric. He struck out 11 batters and had no walks.

The series will continue on Saturday at Swayze Field. First Pitch is set for 7 p.m. C.T. and will be on SEC Network.