Unexpected Tennessee takes lead in Southeastern Conference

Posted 10:07PM on Thursday 12th May 2005 ( 20 years ago )

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Tennessee's baseball team has the best record in the Southeastern Conference, and one of the top reasons is pitcher Luke Hochevar. It's a surprise for the Volunteers, who didn't receive much attention in the preseason after flaming out in last year's NCAA Regionals with two losses to North Carolina-Wilmington. ``Even our coaches voted us 11th in the conference,'' coach Rod Delmonico said. Now the Vols (35-14, 15-8 SEC) lead nearly every offensive statistic in the conference and seem to have a good chance at hosting an NCAA Regional for the first time since 2001. Hochevar has won 11 games, tying him for the most in Division I. The Vols are coming off a three-game sweep of South Carolina. In that series, Hochevar, pronounced HOH'-chay-vuhr, tied a career-high with 13 strikeouts in the first game, and freshman catcher J.P. Arencibia hit his 12th home run of the season to break Todd Helton's rookie record. Arencibia, who also leads the SEC with 59 RBIs, had six hits and drove in five runs during the series and was named the league's player of the week. Hochevar had some injuries last year as a sophomore and went 6-5. After pitching on the USA national team last summer, Hochevar returned this season and has been impressive so far. In 96.2 innings pitched, he has the second-best ERA in the SEC at 1.77 and he's struck out a league-high 107 batters. ``Knowing that your guys are going to score runs definitely helps,'' he said. ``And pitching with the lead is a lot easier than pitching from behind.'' Tennessee will finish the regular season with a three-game series at LSU this weekend, a home game against Lipscomb on May 17 and a home series against Georgia next weekend before heading into the SEC tournament on May 25. The 12 SEC coaches tabbed LSU as the preseason favorite to win the league title and predicted Tennessee would finish next to last in the East division. The Vols are currently in first place in the East, a half-game ahead of Florida. Delmonico, in his 16th season as coach, has led Tennessee to College World Series appearances in 1995 and 2001 and three SEC tournament titles from 1993-95 when Helton, an All-American and now star of the Colorado Rockies, was covering first base. Since 2001, the Vols have finished fourth or fifth in the East, including last year when they had the best record in the league in April before tailing off. They ended the season 14-16 in league play but still made it to the NCAA Regionals. ``I thought we had a chance to win a few more games than we did last year,'' Delmonico said. But even he couldn't predict Tennessee would lead the SEC in batting at .332. The Vols are also tops in slugging percentage (.517), on base percentage (.415), runs scored (417), hits (577) and RBI (379) and second in stolen bases (86). ``It's similar to 2001 because we have several guys who can hit in the lineup and we've got several pitchers that are contributing,'' Delmonico said. On the Net: Tennessee baseball: www.utsports.com (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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