Six teams have won consecutive Men’s College World Series titles, and Tennessee center fielder Hunter Ensley believes the Volunteers can be the seventh.
“I’ve seen teams win national championships, and the year after they’re just mediocre,” says Ensley. “But the way this program’s built, the way Coach [Tony] Vitello recruits, there’s definitely an opportunity to at least make a run at it.”
On June 24 the Vols won their first national championship title over Texas A&M. Two weeks later, Ensley announced on social media that he was “staying home” for another season instead of declaring for the Major League Baseball draft.
Outfielder Hunter Ensley during the 2024 NCAA Baseball regionals. Photo By Ian Cox / Tennessee Athletics
“I weighed both options. Now professional baseball has been my dream forever, and I want to go play pro ball after this year if I get the opportunity again,” says Ensley. “But I just felt like I could have more of an impact here. I’m a pretty loyal guy to the university.”
From a young age, Ensley knew he wanted to be a Volunteer. A Huntingdon, Tennessee, native, he spent many of his Saturdays in high school watching UT football games with friends.
“Growing up, driving around, it’s like orange everywhere, Tennessee flags everywhere,” says Ensley. “I was a Tennessee fan. I knew if I ever got offered by Tennessee, this is where I wanted to go, regardless that there were better programs recruiting me at the time.”
After committing in 2017, Ensley, who is studying recreation and sport management, watched along with the rest of the country as Vitello led the Vols to postseason play year after year, including a 2021 trip to the Men’s College World Series—ending a 16-season drought.
The now redshirt senior joined the Vols’ 40-man roster in 2022, a team he says is “the best team [Vitello] has ever had” despite falling short of a consecutive trip to the College World Series.
“It was a steady climb if you look at it from a win standpoint,” Ensley says. “But what the coaches have done is just engrave it in your brain that you can actually do whatever you think you can if you work for it—you can go win a national championship.”
Ensley noted another key to the Vols’ success: a limited roster turnover, keeping a “core of guys” who understand how the program works, reducing a shift in culture.
One of those core players was catcher Cal Stark (’24). Stark, who grew up in Farragut, Tennessee, just a short drive from Lindsey Nelson Stadium, transferred to UT for the 2023 season after two successful seasons in junior college.
Following his first year, colleges and universities including UT began reaching out to Stark.
Catcher Cal Stark during the 2024 baseball College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. Photo By Kate Luffman / Tennessee Athletics
“I always told my parents that if Tennessee offered me a scholarship I would go there because I wanted to play in front of them and I wanted to play for Coach Vitello,” says Stark. “It was the beginning of February when they offered me a scholarship, and the very next day I committed.”
After joining the Vols, Stark had to adjust to the culture that comes with playing for an SEC team.
“The coaches and older guys helped me do that. The whole support staff at Tennessee made the change from small junior college to big university a lot easier than I thought it would be,” he says.
Ensley and Stark agree that the dedication of the support staff—everyone from academic advisors to nutritionists and strength coaches—helped them become the best students and athletes they could be. Stark praises the coaching staff for their commitment to excellence no matter what it takes.
“The whole coaching staff from top to bottom worked so hard for many years to get it to where it’s at right now,” he says. “Countless hours, throughout the night, a ton of travel, being away from their own families so that they can make this program what it is today. It’s a lot of stuff that the average person doesn’t even think of or see goes into it.”
For both Tennesseans, playing for the university was a dream in itself. Winning a national championship with their band of brothers took that dream to another level.
“[The College World Series] is something that every little kid who plays baseball dreams of, so being able to play there was just awesome on its own, but being able to win it was a whole other level,” says Stark, who signed with the Texas Rangers in July.
For Vitello, having Tennesseans on the team makes a difference.
“The margin between victory and loss is so tiny that everything matters,” he says. “So when a kid is wearing a jersey that he grew up dreaming of wearing, he’s going to fight a little bit more.”