The Tennessee baseball team recently won its first Southeastern Conference Eastern Division championship since 1997.
Following the regular season, a trio of Volunteers were honored by conference coaches.
Senior shortstop and leadoff hitter Liam Spence, junior third baseman Jake Rucker and freshman pitcher Blade Tidwell all captured postseason honors from the league’s coaches.
Spence and Rucker were both named first-team All-SEC performers.
Tidwell was named to the conference’s 2021 All-Freshman Team and Spence also earned a spot on the SEC All-Defensive Team.
This season marks the first time since 2005 that the Volunteers, the No. 2 seed in the upcoming SEC Tournament, have had multiple players earn first-team all-conference honors.
Spence had 13 multi-hit games in SEC competition in 2021 and boasted a .971 fielding percentage.
Rucker led the SEC with 16 doubles. He had a career-high 76 hits with 41 coming against conference competition.
Tidwell, the Vols’ regular Sunday starter on the mound, went 7-3 with a 3.74 ERA.
He becomes the first Vol named to the all-freshman team since Andre Lipcius made the squad in 2017.