Tennessee —the No. 1 ranked team in the nation, the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and the No. 1 seed in the Knoxville Regional —opens postseason play Friday night by hosting Northern Kentucky at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
First pitch between the Vols and Norse is scheduled for 7 p.m. Eastern on SEC Network and the ESPN app. Clay Matvick (play-by-play) and Ben McDonald (analyst) will have the call.
Fans can also listen to Voice of Tennessee Baseball John Wilkerson and Vince Ferrara call the game on the Vol Network. The game can be heard in Knoxville on 99.1 WNML-FM or statewide through local affiliates.
Here are the links that you need forFridaynight's matchup between Tennessee (50-11) andNorthern Kentucky (35-22) in the Knoxville Regional opener for both teams.
Location: Lindsey Nelson Stadium (5,548) in Knoxville, Tennessee
First pitch: 7 p.m. Eastern
TV: SEC Network and ESPN app (Click this link to stream online)
Listen: Vol Network (Click here)
Live Stats: (Click here)
Knoxville Regional Tournament Central: (Click here)
The winner of Friday's game between Tennessee and Northern Kentucky will play at 6 p.m. Eastern on Saturday against the winner of Friday's first game in Knoxville — a 1 p.m. Eastern game between Southern Miss and Indiana. The losers of Friday's two games will play at noon Eastern on Saturday afternoon in an elimination game, and the winner of Saturday's first game will play the loser of Saturday's second game on Sunday afternoon. The winner of that Sunday afternoon game will stay on the field and play whichever team won each of its first two games of the weekend.
If a team wins Friday, Saturday and then again Sunday night, that team will win the Regional. If not, the matter will be decided with a Monday game at a to-be-determined time.
All 16 NCAA Tournament Regionals are double-elimination tournaments, and the last team standing in each Regional advances to a best-of-three Super Regional with a berth in the College World Series at stake.
Tennessee, of course, would like to reach the College World Series for the seventh time in program history — and the third time in four years. Northern Kentucky is the first opponent in the way of that goal.
With very few exceptions, postseason baseball in Knoxville has been kind to the Vols. This will be the eighth time Tennessee had hosted a Regional, and the Vols have won all four of the Regionals they've hosted since tournament switched to a four-team format in 1999. They've swept through each of the past three Regionals they've hosted, going 9-0, and they're 12-1 at Lindsey Nelson under the current Regional format. They ultimately advanced to the College World Series three of the past four times they've hosted an opening weekend Regional, with the lone exceptional coming in a shocking upset by Notre Dame in a 2022 Super Regional.
Northern Kentucky secured its first NCAA Tournament bid as a Division I program by sweeping through the Horizon League Tournament, including a 10-6 win over No. 1 seed and perennial Horizon League power Wright State in a semifinal game. The Norse are 35-22 and went 19-11 in Horizon League regular season play, and their tournament win over Wright State wasn't a fluke. They finished just one game behind Wright State in the regular season standings, and they split six games against the Raiders in the regular season — with each team taking two of three games in the other's park. The tournament game was the seventh meeting between the two this season, and Northern Kentucky won it, 10-6. The Norse then obliterated Youngstown State, 23-5, the following day in the championship game.
Despite playing some midweek games against teams from other power conferences, Northern Kentucky faced only two SEC team this season,albeit a combined three times. The Norse went to Athens in late February and got swept by Georgia, but each of the final two games were one-run losses. Northern Kentucky then went to Mizzou the following weekend and had one of the most interesting weekends you'll ever see, winning the first and third games of the series despite losing the second game, 28-10.
Northern Kentucky, to put it politely, is more known for its offense than its pitching. The Norse have a team ERA of 7.37 but they score more than 9.5 runs per game. Just four teams —one of them is Tennessee — have scored more run than Northern Kentucky this season, and the Norse are fifth nationally in batting average and ninth nationally in OPS. NKU is just 57th nationally in home runs and 21st nationally in doubles, but they're top-10 nationally in hits and in walks drawn, and they're second nationally in triples and 12th nationally in stolen bases.
Tennessee, meanwhile, leads the nation in home runs, is eighth nationally in doubles and fourth nationally in OPS.
