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This time, the hole was simply too deep for the Tennessee baseball team.

The familiar fight was there, but it came way too late.

The Vols (25-21, 11-11 SEC) watched archrival Vanderbilt jump out to an eight-run lead and hold on for an 8-5 victory at Lindsey Nelson Stadium on Friday night.

“It was a combination of a couple things,” UT coach Todd Raleigh said. “We were a little flat and their pitcher did a good job.”

Note to Tennessee fans: Don’t heckle Vandy pitcher Mike Minor. It just fires him up.

“This was pretty big,” he said. “There were a lot of fans here and they like to heckle. I just thought it was a lot of fun.”

Minor’s fun was UT’s agony.

The sophomore lefty limited the Vols to two hits through his first seven innings.

While Minor was cruising, his teammates were providing a serious cushion.

Shortstop Ryan Flaherty gave the Commodores (32-13, 12-9 SEC) an early 3-0 lead when he hit a towering three-run homer 20 feet over the scoreboard in right-center field.

“Once you get down 3-0 to a team like Vanderbilt, it’s tough,” UT starting pitcher Nick Hernandez said. “I feel like I let my team down. I feel so terrible right now I don’t even know what to say to my guys.

“We battled back, but an 8-0 lead is hard to overcome.”

Vandy made it 4-0 in the third when David Macias (4-for-4, three RBIs) led off with a loop single to center, went to second on a wild pitch, to third on a balk and scored on an Andy Simunic error.

Macias helped make it 5-0 in the fourth when his double down the third-base line scored Steven Liddle from third. Liddle had also doubled, one of five for the Commodores in a 12-hit attack.

A crowd of 2,176 grew more and more quiet as Vandy started to pour it on with three more runs in the sixth.

Second baseman Alex Feinberg led off with a double and went to third on a nub hit to Hernandez by Shea Robin. Liddle then delivered a one-run double off the leftfield wall and Macias’ fourth hit of the game was a two-run double to right-center.

“It took us time to recover, but I don’t think we quit,” Raleigh said. “We played really good defense. Nick just wasn’t his normal self tonight. The last two weeks at Arkansas and Mississippi State, he was phenomenal.”

UT finally showed signs of life in the eighth and ninth innings.

Two UT freshmen helped the Vols avoid a shutout. P.J. Polk went opposite way for a solo home run to right to lead off the bottom of the eighth. With two outs and following a walk to Simunic, Josh Liles belted a two-run shot over the left-field fence to make it 8-3.

With two outs in the ninth, Danny Lima reached base on a fielder’s choice and Polk (2-for-3) singled up the middle. Junior designated hitter Jarred Frazier, seeing his first action since the death of his mother, doubled in two runs to complete the scoring.

In a tight SEC race, Minor knows this was a big one for the Commodores.

“It’s a really big deal because you get the upper hand,” he said. “Even if you lose (Saturday), you can still win the series.

“The pressure is on them and we have all the confidence right now.”

The Vols and Commodores play game two of the three-game series at 4 p.m. today.

Notebook: UT sophomore catcher Yan Gomes had his hit streak snapped at 17 games as he went 0-for-4 . . . Raleigh said Shawn Griffin and Jeff Lockwood were not in the UT lineup because of the matchup with left-hander Minor. Griffin pinch hit in the ninth and grounded out to the pitcher for the final out ... Jecolia White, daughter of former UT football great Reggie White, sang the National Anthem ... Feinberg, the Vandy second baseman, is wearing a protective mask in the field and at the plate after being hit in the face by a pitch from Ole Miss pitcher Lance Lynn on April 5 ... A new jumbo Power T has been painted in center field.

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.