BREAKING: Kentucky top star drops regular season finale; will be No. 3 seed in SEC Tournament
Kentucky will not be the sole SEC Champions after losing 12-4 to Vanderbilt in their regular season finale on Saturday. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Volunteers secured a share of the SEC regular season title by defeating South Carolina.
During the game’s second inning, Calvin Hewett hit an RBI double for Vanderbilt, and Ryan Nicholson responded with a solo home run for Kentucky, tying the score at 1-1. Vanderbilt took the lead again in the third inning with a solo home run by Davis Diaz off UK starter Mason Moore.
Kentucky tied the game at 2-2 in the fifth inning with a solo home run from Emilien Pitre, which also ended Vanderbilt starter JD Thompson’s outing after 4.2 innings. Vanderbilt then loaded the bases in the sixth inning, prompting UK to replace Moore. However, the bullpen struggled, and Cameron O’Brien allowed a two-run single to Hewett, followed by RBI singles from Jonathan Vastine and Diaz, pushing the score to 6-2.
Vanderbilt extended their lead to 8-2 in the seventh inning, with Matthew Polk hitting an RBI double and scoring on two wild pitches by Johnny Hummel. Kentucky narrowed the gap to 8-3 with an RBI double from Nick Lopez in the seventh, but Vanderbilt added two more runs in the eighth to lead 10-3. Nolan McCarthy’s RBI single in the eighth made it 10-4, but Troy LaNeve’s two-run pinch-hit home run in the ninth sealed the 12-4 victory for Vanderbilt.
Despite the loss, Kentucky finished the regular season with a 22-8 SEC record, the best in its history. They won nine of their 11 SEC series, including taking two of three games against Vanderbilt over the weekend. This SEC regular season co-championship is only the second in Kentucky’s history, the first being shared with Alabama in 2006.
With Tennessee’s previous series win over Kentucky, Tennessee secured the No. 1 seed in next week’s NCAA Tournament in Hoover, Alabama, while Arkansas, the SEC West champions, will be the No. 2 seed. Kentucky will be the No. 3 seed and will play their first game on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EST against the winner of the first-round matchup between the tournament’s No. 6 and No. 11 seeds.