Tennessee baseball's Tony Vitello tabbed ABCA Coach of the Year

Just days after leading Tennessee to its first national championship in program history, Tony Vitello received some individual recognition on Wednesday.

Vitello, who completed his seventh season as the Vols' head coach with a 6-5 win over Texas A&M in Game 3 of the College World Series finals Monday night, was named the America Baseball Coaches Association Coach of the Year.

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The award comes after Vitello oversaw the winningest season in school history with 60 wins, which included an SEC regular season and tournament titles and the No. 1 over seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Among Tennessee's accomplishments was becoming the first SEC team to win 60 games in a season and just the fourth to win both the conference regular season title, tournament title and national championship in the same year.

The Vols were the first 1-seed to win the national title since 1999.

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Tennessee's championship run was years in the making. Vitello previously led the Vols to the College World Series in 2021 and 2023. After going a combined 1-4 in those appearances, Tennessee beat Florida State twice, North Carolina and Texas A&M in the third game of a best-of-three series to reach the pinnacle of college baseball.

The Vols have 211 games and boast a .773 winning percentage over the last four seasons.

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