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Tennessee, Arkansas baseball coaches have heated exchange after series finale
By Andrew Olson
Published:
It’s still the regular season but this weekend’s Arkansas-Tennessee series in Knoxville had the intensity of a Super Regional with Omaha on the line. No. 1 Arkansas managed to win the series with a 3-2 victory in Sunday’s rubber game. All three contests were one-run decisions with Arkansas overcoming a 5-0 first-inning deficit to win the opener 6-5 and No. 4 Tennessee winning Game 2 8-7 on a walk-off home run.
Baseball fans and media members everywhere were surprised by what happened after the final out of the weekend as Dave Van Horn and Tony Vitello, a former DVH assistant, had a heated exchange.
Emily Proud and Trey Wallace captured clips of the initial exchange:
A “chat” is a nice way of putting it… love the strategy by Vitello to wear the mask so it looks one-sided. Genius. pic.twitter.com/YQYlIO13nY
— Emily Proud (@emily_proud) May 16, 2021
Tony Vitello and Dave Van Horn exchanging pleasantries after the hard fought series. pic.twitter.com/ADtxlrsiaX
— Trey Wallace (@TreyWallace_) May 16, 2021
The coaches then spoke to their team huddles. After that, they had a one-on-one conversation. Ben McKee captured that conversation, noting it did not end in a handshake:
Tony Vitello made sure to find Dave Van Horn after he got done speaking to his team.
Pretty intense conversation that resulted in both coaches walking away without a handshake. pic.twitter.com/aP5Cx4Y0o2
— Ben McKee (@benmckee14) May 16, 2021
Vitello declined to go into detail after the game, per Wes Rucker:
#Vols coach Tony Vitelllo on postgame kerfuffle with Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn: There were some off-field things I wanted to say. That’s probably more than I should say.
— Wes Rucker (@wesrucker247) May 16, 2021
With the way these two teams are playing, it’s possible the Vols and Hogs aren’t done dueling on the diamond and could meet again in the postseason.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
