Tony Vitello reveals what makes Jared Dickey so clutch in the big moments

Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello explained what makes Jared Dickey a great clutch player following the Volunteers’ win on Sunday.

It was a huge win over Southern Miss, forcing a game three for a trip to Omaha. In that game, Dickey had a big hit, driving in two key runs for Tennessee. That was one of just two hits he’s had in the series, both of which were clutch for Tennessee.

“To not sound too corny, Jared Dickey’s always at his best,” Tony Vitello said. “An interesting beginning to our relationship and his time on campus and ever since then, every day is an incredible day to be around Jared Dickey, and I’d say it whether he’s sitting here or not.”

Tony Vitello emphasized that in many ways, Jared Dickey has been a parallel to the team as a whole this season.

“Maybe again, parallel to our team, in August it wasn’t a fun team to be around. It was awkward and there was a lot of space between the players and the coaches, the player and the players even, the players and the managers on a couple of occasions,” Vitello said.

“And, since then, we’ve been coming together, and, again, I think the cool thing about these guys, it was an emotional win, but there was a quick reflection on it and then move forward to tomorrow and give us another day so we can try and come together a little bit more.”

Ahead of the third game, DraftKings released odds on the third game of this series, favoring Tennessee heavily. Southern Miss is a 1.5-run underdog and is +160 straight up to win the game. The over-under was also set at just 10.5 runs for the game.

Jared Dickey on his go-ahead hit

After the win over Southern Miss, Jared Dickey was asked about the go-ahead hit that he hit in the fourth inning. He explained that he relied on sitting on a particular pitch to get that hit.

“It’s a big time win for us,” Dickey said. “I think really just trying to focus on staying to the ball. We knew that he had a little bit of (arm-side run) on his fastball and that he was going to throw his changeup a good bit, so just trying to sit one of those pitches. Got a pitch to hit and did damage with it.”

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