Tennessee baseball will open the Chapel Hill Regional against East Carolina on May 29, a matchup that puts the No. 2 seed on the field at noon ET on ESPNU against the No. 3 seed in one of the NCAA Tournament’s toughest four-team brackets. Evan Blanco will start for Tennessee, and Ryan Towers will go for East Carolina.
That is why people are searching ecu baseball now: the bracket is set, the first pitch time is fixed, and Tennessee is walking into a regional hosted by North Carolina at Boshamer Stadium with only one team advancing. The winner between Tennessee and East Carolina will move on to play either North Carolina or VCU at 5 p.m. May 30, while the loser drops into an elimination game at noon that same day.
Josh Elander said that kind of setup is exactly what competitors should want. “I think that's the only way you should want it as a competitor,” he said. “Let's go best vs. best and figure out what's what.” He added that the game is not played on paper, only “between the lines,” and said he was eager to see his players handle the pressure after being given the keys late in the season.
Levi Clark sounded ready for the same challenge. “I think it helps us motivate for this weekend and hopefully onto the next,” he said, while adding that the group is trying not to look too far ahead. Clark also said, “I think our team’s ready for anything, really.” Tennessee has reason to believe that. The Vols recovered from a 4-8 SEC start, won four of their last six SEC series, and beat Mississippi State, Alabama and Texas along the way.
Still, Tennessee is in unusual territory. This is just the second time in six seasons the Vols are not hosting a regional in Knoxville, and they enter as a No. 2 seed rather than the kind of top seed they have been in recent years. They were the No. 1 overall seed twice in the last six seasons, and the last time they were seeded this way, in 2023, they went to the College World Series.
The Chapel Hill Regional looks the part of a grinder. North Carolina is the No. 5 overall seed, East Carolina is 36-22-1, VCU is 37-23 and Tennessee is 38-20, but the host site still carries one of the strongest statistical profiles in the tournament. It has the fourth-highest average RPI among the 16 regionals, the third-highest average Diamond Sports Ranking and, once No. 4 seeds are removed, the highest average DSR ranking of any regional. Tennessee is the No. 2 seed and not favored to advance, but that only sharpens what happens next: beat East Carolina, and the Vols get one more game to prove the paper never mattered.
