Tennessee baseball’s latest regional championship was well in hand before Cal Stark hit in the ninth inning Sunday.

Stark sauntered to the plate and made a final declaration anyway with a towering three-run home run — not only did the Vols make winning a regional look casual, they are built to bury teams with a lineup that is clicking at a different level.

“You can’t catch your breath,” Southern Miss coach Christian Ostrander said. "You’ve got to execute. If you give them a little bit of something, they can hurt you because they can do so many things.”

Ostrander saw it last season in the three-game Hattiesburg Super Regional. He saw it once with an even better version of the Vols as No. 1 Tennessee (53-11) pounded its way through the Knoxville Regional, which it capped with a 12-3 win against the No. 2 seed Golden Eagles at Lindsey Nelson Stadium to advance to a fourth straight super regional.

Tennessee will face Evansville (38-24), which knocked off host and top seed East Carolina on Monday in the Greenville Regional.

Cal Stark, Dean Curley power offense from bottom third

The onslaught started with a shrewd sophomore staring down a 3-2 pitch as Dylan Dreiling walked to start the sixth inning with Tennessee trailing 3-2.

The Vols scored 10 straight runs in the final four innings, unleashing an aerial assault on the Golden Eagles that was powered not by Tennessee’s vaunted top three hitters but by the rest of the lineup.

“It is just very long,” Ostrander said. "It is a long lineup.”

Sunday made that abundantly clear as coach Tony Vitello’s bunch pummeled baseballs again to move into the super regional against either East Carolina or Evansville.

Stark hammered two homers from the nine-hole a year after he was a dead spot in the lineup. He’s flipped that belief with a steady season, holding the catcher spot even after Tennessee went into the transfer portal to get Cannon Peebles to bolster the group.

“He has met any challenge you can imagine head on and he has improved from it,” Vitello said.

Dean Curley, who hadn’t homered since April 7, got a second-chance at-bat in the seventh after a balk call erased a flyout. He hit a ball to the same part of the ballpark as the flyout — but sent it over the fence. It was his second homer of the regional. He had four hits in the final two games. The freshman shortstop slumped through SEC play but is suddenly providing power again in the seven-spot, extending the lineup's danger beyond the top six.

Hunter Ensley’s resurgence giving the Vols life

Hunter Ensley was hitting .238 heading into Tennessee’s series finale at Florida on May 4. He went 3-for-4 in that game and hasn’t stopped hitting.

The redshirt junior centerfielder is hitting .285 after the regional. He was 5-for-12 in the three-game set.

LIGHT: Meet Carlee Beam, the brightest light at Tennessee baseball's Lindsey Nelson Stadium

“The last month has been going up there and trying to make everything a little more simple,” Ensley said.

Ensley moved into the fifth-spot in the lineup in May as Vitello shuffled the lineup. He moved Dreiling to the cleanup spot. He shifted Kavares Tears from the cleanup spot to the six-hole and put Ensley between the two. The middle of the order has been clicking since.

Tears walked seven times in the regional and had the biggest swing Sunday with a three-run homer two batters after Dreiling’s walk. Ensley had a double between the two.

Dreiling, who quietly has been one of the SEC’s best players, raked with a .538 batting average to earn the regional most outstanding player award. It could have gone to Ensley. It certainly could have gone to Stark.

It was that kind of weekend for the Vols, whose vaunted lineup is getting even better in June.

“It is just a very, very, very good lineup,” Ostrander said. “Very good program. Very good team. They are going to be a handful for whoever catches them next for sure.”

Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee baseball's lineup is on the upswing after loud NCAA regional