Kentucky baseball’s SEC Tournament run ends thanks to a rival exacting revenge
The Kentucky baseball team’s run in the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Hoover, Alabama, has come to a close.
After winning three elimination games in four days to reach the SEC Tournament semifinals, Kentucky, the lowest seed in the tournament (No. 12), was eliminated early Sunday morning by No. 1 Tennessee.
UK lost 12-2 to Tennessee as the Volunteers advanced to face Florida in Sunday afternoon’s tournament championship game.
This postseason run for head coach Nick Mingione’s team began Wednesday with an opening-round, elimination-game win over Auburn, which was followed by a loss to LSU to begin double-elimination play.
The Wildcats then scored wins over Vanderbilt and LSU, both in elimination-game scenarios, to set up the semifinal meeting with Tennessee.
Despite being the only team in the country to win a series this season against the Volunteers, Kentucky was unable to extend that success against the nation’s best team.
Kentucky will now await it’s NCAA Tournament fate with an overall record of 33-26 and a mark of 15-20 against other SEC schools.
The 64-team NCAA Tournament field will be announced at noon Monday.
UK last made the NCAA Tournament in 2017.
UK hangs tough, wilts late against Vols
The Wildcats kept it competitive for most of the SEC Tournament semifinal against the Volunteers — which began Saturday night and ended Sunday morning — but a barrage of late runs swung the game in Tennessee’s favor.
Magdiel Cotto started for UK and combined with relief pitcher Austin Strickland for seven quality innings.
But it was a runner left on base by Strickland when he was pulled from the game with no outs in the eighth inning that helped jump-start Tennessee’s late scoring surge.
With the game tied 2-2, Tennessee plated four runs in the eighth inning and six runs in the ninth inning. As good as UK’s bullpen had been in Hoover, Wyatt Hudepohl, Zack Lee and Mason Moore were unable to stem the late scoring surge by the Volunteers.
Tennessee, which leads the nation in home runs, got a three-run shot from Blake Burke in the ninth.
UK’s two runs came in the fifth inning via an RBI double by Daniel Harris, with Harris later scoring on a wild pitch.
Tennessee had 11 hits to UK’s five.
UK finished the SEC Tournament with a pair of notable injuries as well.
During Saturday afternoon’s win over LSU, outfielder John Thrasher left the game after colliding with the center-field fence while trying to make a catch. Thrasher didn’t play in the semifinal loss to Tennessee.
During the loss to Tennessee, third baseman Chase Estep turned his ankle while running out a fly ball and had to leave the game.
UK sets historic marks at SEC Tournament
This spectacular and sudden SEC Tournament run for Kentucky was historic in several ways.
The Cats went 3-2 this week at the conference tournament, marking their first postseason wins since 2017.
This was also the first time since 2014 that UK won multiple SEC Tournament games, and in the process Kentucky became the first No. 12 seed to reach the semifinals of the SEC Tournament.
With Saturday afternoon’s win over LSU, Mingione moved into third place on the all-time wins list at UK with 176 career victories.
UK is now 25-39 in 23 appearances in the SEC Tournament. Kentucky is 4-6 in the SEC Tournament under Mingione and 8-8 overall in the postseason.
Up next
Now the Cats must wait.
The 64-team NCAA Tournament field will be announced at noon Monday on ESPN2, which is when Mingione and the Cats will learn if they will return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017.
Kentucky’s victories in Hoover moved UK from well outside of the NCAA Tournament picture to squarely on the tournament bubble.
D1Baseball.com currently projects Kentucky as the fifth team out of the NCAA Tournament, and behind fellow SEC schools Alabama and Ole Miss on the outside looking in.
What does Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament résumé look like?
Working in UK’s favor is series wins against big-name schools set to host regionals including TCU and Tennessee, along with other projected tournament teams Auburn and Georgia.
All three of UK’s wins at the SEC Tournament (Auburn, LSU, Vanderbilt) came against teams expected to be in the NCAA Tournament field.
Working against UK is a low RPI ranking (outside the top 50 as of Saturday) and losses to bad teams. The Cats dropped a series at Missouri (which didn’t qualify for the SEC Tournament), at South Carolina (which won’t make the NCAA Tournament) and midweek games to the likes of Western Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Eastern Kentucky.
Kentucky was 7-13 in true road games this season, and that mark is only 4-13 when you take out the first three games of the season at Jacksonville State.
