Tony Vitello: Tennessee’s response after error vs. Alabama was ‘incredible’

Tony Vitello acknowledged the error and how much it hurt. Dean Curley rushed the throw to first base and it went wide in the fifth inning Wednesday in Tennessee’s SEC Tournament opener against Alabama.

The Crimson Tide scored two runs on the two-out miscue, getting back to within a run at 5-4, then took the lead on a two-run double in the next at-bat.

“That’s not good,” Vitello said during his press conference after the game. “It’s a punch in the gut.”

But it wasn’t a punch Tennessee couldn’t overcome. That’s where Vitello’s focus was afterward — his team’s response.

The eighth-seeded Vols tied the game on a Cannon Peebles RBI single in the bottom of the fifth, then took control for good with a five-run sixth inning on the way to a 15-10 win over No. 9 Alabama.

“I thought it was incredible,” Vitello said.

Up Next: No. 8 Tennessee vs. No. 1 Texas, Thursday, 4 p.m. ET, SEC Network

Tennessee (42-15) now advances to No. 1-seed Texas (42-11) on Thursday, scheduled for a 4 p.m. Eastern Time start on SEC Network. The winner will advance to face either No. 4 Vanderbilt or No. 12 Oklahoma on Saturday.

The errors will have to be minimal, if not nonexistent, against the top-ranked Longhorns, the team that is widely projected to be the No. 1 overall seed when the NCAA Tournament bracket is revealed on Monday.

For Curley, it was his 15th error of his sophomore season, more than double the total of any his teammates — Ariel Antigua and Dalton Bargo have seven each — and four more than any other player in the SEC this season.

“It was a little bit of a miscue,” Vitello said of Curley’s error, “but even the older guys, they’re still young, other than Hunter Ensley. You’re going to make mistakes, but I think the way we’ve handled mistakes, there’s been some overreaction from a variety of sources, and over the course of the season, especially in this league, there’s so many ups and downs.”

There were more downs than ups for Tennessee during the stretch run of the regular season, which ended with five straight SEC series losses and six losses in the final seven, dating back to the first weekend of April.

‘You’d better learn to take a punch’

During that same span, Curley committed 11 of his 15 errors.

“That’s the one thing this league will prepare you for,” Vitello said, “why the league has done so well once the NCAA postseason starts. Here (in the SEC Tournament), we’re all also beating up on each other.”

If Tennessee wants a shot at hosting when the NCAA Tournament starts — as one of the top 16 national seeds — the Vols will need to be the ones beating other teams up while making a run to the weekend in Hoover.

They fought back Wednesday against Alabama after another self-inflicted wound.

“You’d better learn to take a punch,” Vitello said. “And I think this team has slowly gotten better as the season has gone on.”