Tennessee notched a winning weekend at the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series in Arlington, Texas, capping the three-day event Sunday afternoon with a 3-1 downing of Virginia Tech.

The No. 19 Volunteers arrived at Globe Life Field looking to bounce back from last weekend’s series loss to Kent State inside Lindsey Nelson Stadium, but Friday’s test came against top-ranked UCLA and resulted in a 12-5 setback. They rebounded Saturday with a 5-3 win over Arizona State and then used dominant pitching to polish off the Hokies.

“We’re learning more,” Vols first-year coach Josh Elander told reporters afterward. “We got punched in the mouth Friday and played a really good club in UCLA. We had a good response yesterday, and we got to play in some close ballgames. That’s what you want.

“These guys got to play in a major league stadium, and we got the deer-in-the-headlights look out of the way with some of them.”

Tennessee improved to 8-3 on the season, while Virginia Tech dropped to 7-4.

Evan Blanco, Mark Hindy and Brayden Krenzel combined to allow just three hits Sunday while striking out 11 batters. Blanco tallied six of those strikeouts and worked into the sixth inning, yielding one run on two hits and one walk.

“He did a good job,” Elander said. “I think he’s been mad at me two weeks in a row because I know he wants to stay out there longer, and he will.”

Krenzel threw three full innings to pick up the save, allowing one hit and one walk while striking out four.

“He was electric,” Elander said. “His fastball was up to 97. He was pitching to the bottom quadrants of the zone and running some up late. His changeup was good, and his slider was as good as I’ve seen it.

“We’ve got a ton of confidence in Krenzel, and that was really good to see.”

Tennessee broke a scoreless tie in the third inning with a two-out rally that began with Ariel Antigua’s infield hit and Jay Abernathy’s walk before Henry Ford singled up the middle to score Antigua. That 1-0 lead quickly evaporated, however, when Nick Locurto’s leadoff home run to left field in the fourth inning pulled the Hokies even.

Abernathy drew another walk to lead off the sixth and advanced to second on Ford’s groundout, which set up Blaine Brown’s grounder up the middle that bounced off second base and caromed into center field for an RBI double. Levi Clark, who is hitting just .175 this season, followed with a double down the left-field line to extend Tennessee’s lead to 3-1.

“I feel pretty confident in the box right now,” Clark said. “I just feel like a lot of things aren’t going my way. I’m hitting it hard, but that’s part of the game.”

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The Vols have five games scheduled this week at Lindsey Nelson, beginning with East Tennessee State on Tuesday and Oakland on Wednesday before facing Wright State in a weekend series starting Friday.

“We definitely got better here,” Elander said. “I’m really excited about five games at home this week and getting our guys a lot of reps in our home ballpark.”

Said Clark: “Getting two wins after a loss is one of the biggest things in baseball. I’m very proud of our team for bouncing back.”

Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.