Tennessee heads to Oxford

The 2010 Tennessee baseball team, looking for its first league win of the season, travels to Oxford, Mississippi this weekend for a three game series with the Ole Miss Rebels.

The Rebels, No. 11 in this week’s Baseball America Poll, are the third straight ranked opponent the Vols face in conference play. Tennessee opened the SEC season in Columbia against now No. 12 South Carolina before squaring off against the fifth-ranked LSU Tigers last weekend in Knoxville.

Tennessee (13-13) is looking to build momentum after two mid-week wins at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.

The Vols beat Tennessee Tech on Tuesday by a final score of 9-3 before crushing Presbyterian on Wednesday, 25-6. Led by juniors Cody Hawn (4-for-7) and P.J. Polk (5-for-9), Tennessee tallied 34 hits and raised its batting average by 13 points from .267 to .280.

While its starting pitchers have performed well, Tennessee has struggled to close out games. In all six conference losses this season the Vols were either tied or within one run in the seventh or eighth inning. During that stretch, Tennessee allowed 22 runs in the final three innings compared to only 20 over the first six.

Bryan Morgado is expected to take the mound on Friday night for the Vols. The junior left-hander is 2-2 on the season with a 4.42 ERA.

Stephen McCray will get the call on Saturday and Steven Gruver will close out the series on Sunday.

Ole Miss (20-6) leads the all-time series, 35-31-1.

Sunday’s final game will be televised by SportSouth.

Streaks of note: P.J. Polk has homered in each of his last three games, dating back to Sunday’s contest against LSU… Blake Forsythe busted out of his hitting slump as of latte. The junior has now hit safely in six consecutive games.