Our No.5 baseball team won over Middle Tennessee State Tuesday night at home, 7-4, and it was a really good game for us in a lot of ways. Jeren Kendall and Bryan Reynolds were both two-for-four, Jeren with a ribbie and Bryan with two. Reynolds hit his 10th double of the season. Freshman Ethan Paul played first and was three-for-five with a triple. Great stuff from Ethan. Freshman Connor Kaiser played short and was two for three with three runs scored. We turned two double plays. Senior Tyler Campbell played second, and this combo of Kaiser and Campbell at short and second really seems to be working out well. Corbs has been working different combinations to see if he can find the right one. Looks like he has his up the middle crew intact now. Some other good news in the hitting and pitching departments were that two of our freshman who had been hurt, both played last night and played well. Freshman Julian Infante, who can play either corner of the infield, came in as a pinch hitter and got a base hit, a sharp hit to the outfield. Heard an interview with Julian afterwards. Awesome kid. He’ll help us this year. Also, freshman Donnie Everett came in and pitched an inning, and threw 14 pitches, 12 for strikes, he didn’t allow a run and was outstanding. Lefty Ryan Johnson started and pitched four innings for us and did a nice job. Collin Snider kind of got knocked around a little bit in an inning of work, giving up three hits and two runs, but I still believe in Collin. He’ll keep getting better. Matt Ruppenthal gave us two superb innings with no runs, no hits, no walks and three K’s. Matt kind of had a rough outing against LSU last Saturday, but he is super talented. Then, some other great news, John Kilichowski, who is just getting back from injury, he pitched last Saturday at LSU, pitched an inning and struck out all three batters he faced. Great to see John back out there and pitching well. John can really help us, maybe even as a weekend guy. We’ll see what Corbs wants to do with John. Always have loved John’s arm and he gives us another stellar lefty along with Ben Bowden. 

Overall, a good performance from the team as we head into a huge weekend series at home against the Kentucky Wildcats, which are ranked No.18 in the country. We are 26-7 overall and 7-5 in the conference. Kentucky is 8-4 in the SEC and 22-10 overall. They lost to No.9 Louisville at home last night, 9-6. But they have taken two of three from No. 3 Florida at home and took two of three from Alabama last weekend at home. We’ll more than likely go with Jordan Sheffield Friday Night, Kyle Wright on Saturday, and I imagine Sunday is to be determined. Maybe Hayden Stone, maybe Kilichowski. Both solid arms. Friday night’s game is at 6:30 PM CT/7:30 PM ET, Saturday’s game is at 2 PM CT/3 PM ET, and Sunday’s game is at 1 PM CT/2 PM ET. Friday and Saturday’s games are on SEC Network+ online, but Sunday’s game is not scheduled to be broadcast on video. If you want to keep up with the game, you may need to get on gametracker on the vucommodores.com website. Big deal for the team this weekend. Will have Kentucky’s starters and ours as soon as it is announced on the vucommodores.com website.

MLB guys

Pedro went one for two for the Orioles last night against the BoSox at Fenway. He hit a solid single to right and had two walks and a ground out to second. The Sox won 4-2 but really needed it. The Orioles came into the game at 7-0 and David and the Sox needed to catch up in the standings. The BoSox moved to 4-4 on the season and the O’s dropped to 7-1. It’s tough when it’s Pedro’s and Ryan Flaherty’s team versus David’s team, but had to pull for the Sox last night, even though I was really pulling for Pedro to do well. Wanted David and the Sox to get the victory to get closer to the red hot O’s. The Yankees are in second in the AL East at 4-3 and the BoSox are third at 4-4, while the Jays, another stellar team, are 4-5. DP pitches against the Jays on Sunday at Fenway. Game time is 12:35 PM CT/1:35 PM ET. DP is facing Aaron Sanchez of Toronto who is 0-0 in two starts, but has a 1.38 ERA and an 0.85 WHIP, walks plus hits per innings pitched, which is an excellent number. David is 1-0 with a 5.73 ERA and a 1.27 WHIP. He’ll get those numbers down. Just had a rough inning against the O’s on Monday, but pitching well overall. He was hitting 93-94 consistently against the O’s and hit 95 one time. His change up was pretty good, too, and he threw some pretty good cutters. Didn’t really throw the curve though it’s really become a pretty good pitch for him. It’s a tough assignment pitching against these hitting juggernauts in the AL East. Toronto has huge bats with Josh Donaldson, Joey Bats, Edwin Encarnacion and a host of others. So it’s a tough challenge for Dave. The Yankees are a hitting machine as well, and Dave will see them a lot. Will look forward to watching Dave on Sunday.

Sonny goes Sunday against another tough team to beat, the defending world champion KC Royals. Kris Medlin will face Sonny, and he’s very good. Sonny is 1-1 with a 2.70 ERA and a 1.20 WHiP. Both David’s and Sonny’s WHIP numbers will go down. Medlin is 1-0 with a 3.60 ERA and a 2.00 WHIP, which is pretty high. But he’s solid and the Royals’ lineup is tough. Sonny will be severely tested.

Great to see Pedro start hitting it. Would love to see him get hot. Ryan hasn’t seen a ton of action, but he’ll get his opportunities, and Curt Casali is platooning at catcher in Tampa. The A’s are 4-6 and the Rays are 3-5.

Football

There was a great story yesterday or the day before about four of our young football assistants on vucommodores.com.

Cortez Hankton, our wide receivers coach, is 35, and did a great job coaching wide outs at Dartmouth. Cortez enters his second season under Coach Mason and Coach Ludwig, and I’m ready to see what he can do with Trent Sherfield, C.J. Duncan and Caleb Scott among others.

C.J. Ah You, 33, is our defensive line coach, and in his first year. The kids love him and he’s played in the NFL and for Oklahoma where he was a very good player. I think he’ll do well with Adam Butler, Nifae Lealao, Jay Woods and the rest of our d line. Like what C. J. can bring to the staff and to the players on the d line.

Chris Marve, 26, a former stud Commodore linebacker, will be coaching our inside linebackers. Chris is such a hard worker, I watched him last year in practice and in games and he’s got an amazing motor and passion for coaching. Chris is super smart. He worked as a defensive graduate assistant for Coach Mason last year, and is in his first year as inside linebackers coach. Love what he can do with Zach Cunningham, Nigel Bowden and company. They really will play hard for him, and they will be coached up well.

Marc Mattioli, 26, will take over the secondary this season for Coach Mason. Mattioli is in his second year on the staff and will run the whole secondary for the first time, as former cornerbacks coach Brett Maxie took a secondary job for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Coach Mason will work closely with Marc, as Coach Mason is heavily involved in the secondary, so safety Oren Burks and cornerback Torren McGaster, our leaders and terrific players, will be really coached up well by Coach Mattioli and Coach Mason. Coach Mason will again run the defense. He will have a major influence on the secondary.

Three things I love about this: 1. Our young coaches will have super energy on the field and in their coaching, 2. they will recruit through the roof, and 3. working for Coach Mason, and with our veteran coaches, new outside linebackers coach Osia Lewis, who came over after a highly esteemed 25 year career including his last stop at San Diego State, which was an excellent team with an outstanding defense, veteran coach Jeff Genyk, who will be in his first year and coach running backs and special teams. Coach Ludwig, Coach Genyk, Coach Hankton, and first year coach, but veteran, offensive line coach Cameron Norcross, who came over from Fresno State where he had major success should be an outstanding combination. Really excited about the addition of Coach Norcross. He’s 38 and brings a ton of energy and toughness to our o line and will be an excellent recruiter. And Coach Gerry Gdowski will coach our quarterbacks and be our recruiting coordinator. So I love this staff. Our young coaches are going to be outstanding working with our veteran coaches and our veteran and young players. Pretty excited for South Carolina, Thursday, Sept. 1st, time to be determined, at Vanderbilt Stadium. 

Men’s Golf

The No.7 men’s golf team will be competing in the SEC championship in Sea Island, Georgia this weekend. The guys will tee it up on the par-70, 7,055 yard course with number one seed Georgia and number two seed Auburn tomorrow at 7:30 AM ET/6:30 AM CT. We are the number three seed. You can keep up with the tournament on golfstat.com, which will show the leaderboard and stats. Junior Matthias Schwab and freshmen Patrick Martin and Will Gordon are our horses, but we’ve gotten good play from Theo Humphrey and Carson Jacobs as well. We’ll need all five to play well.

Women’s tennis

The girls are in action against Auburn and Alabama, Friday and Sunday, respectively. We play Auburn tomorrow at 4 PM CT at home, and play Alabama Sunday at 1 PM CT at home as well. We are 16-4 overall and 9-2 in the SEC and ranked No.6 in the country by the ITA rankings. The SEC tournament starts next Wednesday, 4-20, in Baton Rouge, so we really need a good day tomorrow and Sunday to get ready for the conference tourney.  

Final Note

Fes Ezeli had four points, six boards and a block at the Golden State Warriors behind the almost other worldly Steph Curry and his 46 points defeated the Memphis Grizzlies, 125-104. The Warriors finished the season 73-9, and set the record for regular season victories in an NBA season eclipsing the Chicago Bulls’ 72 victories in 1996. Now, it’s onto the playoffs. Fes looks back after being injured for a while. It was his sixth game and he was active and outstanding. I see Fes playing a big role on the team in the postseason. 

A lot of people are comparing the Warriors and those Bulls and, in an ESPN poll, gave the Bulls the edge if they had the home court advantage, the Warriors the edge if they had the home court advantage, and the Bulls the edge on a neutral court. They were and are both tremendous teams with outrageously good superstars in Michael and Steph. Would be interesting to have seen these two hook up in a championship series. Kind of fun to think about. I kind of agree with the poll. The Bulls with the  home court advantage and on a neutral court might have won, but the Warriors are as tough an out as you can get.