March 25, 2000
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Robert Newton picked a good time to break out of a 4-30 slump. Newton hittwo homeruns, including the game winner in the tenth inning as Kentuckydefeated Tennessee for the second straight day in extra innings, 7-6.
Newton’s game winner came leading off the tenth against reliever JordanDeJong who hadn’t given up a hit in four innings of work. Newton lined outto short against DeJong in the seventh but in the tenth Newton was lookingfor something offspeed.
“He started me off with a breaking ball. He’d been starting a lot of guysoff like that so I kinda took that mental approach up there. He sorta leftit out and I just banged it to left,” Newton said.
“I’m real happy for Rob Newton because he’s not been swinging the bat asthis year as he did last year. Tonight might have been a big part of gettinghim back on track,” UK Coach Keith Madison said.
John Hooker pitched the final 1 2/3 to pick up his first win of the seasonafter picking up his second save by recording the final out of Friday’sgame.
“I’m proud of John Hooker, the way he has come in the last two nights andclosed those games for us. He showed a lot of courage and confidence,”Madison said.
In the bottom of the tenth Chris Burke doubled with two outs and advanced tothird on a passed ball before Hooker got Kris Bennett to ground out.Tennessee had sixteen hits against four Kentucky pitchers but before Burke’sdouble all their hits had been singles.
“I felt pretty good, I just tried to through strikes and let the defensetake care of it and they did a great job,” Hooker said.Kentucky (21-4, 3-4 SEC) took a 2-0 in the second when Seth Morris scored onAndy Green’s bunt single. After scoring a run in the second, Tennessee tookthe lead in the third. Jeff Christensen singled with one out and scoredwhen Kentucky third baseman Vince Harrison committed two errors on one play.
Stevie Daniel’s hard ground ball glanced off Harrison’s glove and hit himin the mouth then after retrieving the ball he threw wild to first. Danieladvanced to third on the play and scored on a Justin Parker sacrifice fly.
Newton’s first homerun of the game came in the fourth against Tennesseestarter Brian Gates tying the game at 3-3.
In the fifth Tennessee got four straight singles while scoring two runs totake a 5-3 lead. The Volunteers lead was short lived, in the top of thesixth Kentucky tied the game on Jeff Meade’s second homerun of the season.Green later scored on a John Wilson ground out to give Kentucky a 6-5 lead.Tennessee tied the score in the seventh when John Massey drove in his thirdrun of the game on a single to left that scored Daniel.
Kingsport, Tennessee native Scott Wade started for Kentucky and allowed fiveruns and 11 hits in 4 1/3 innings. The freshman was making his first startagainst Tennessee, a school that didn’t heavily recruit him even though hewas All-state his last two years at Sullivan South.
“I just wanted to give our team a chance to win and I think I did that,”Wade said.
