For more than five innings, Kentucky's game on Friday against No. 3 Vanderbilt went about as well as the Wildcats could have hoped.

T.J. Collett hit a massive home run against arguably the nation's top pitcher, the Commodores' Jack Leiter, and UK starter Dillon Marsh tossed five innings of two-hit, shutout baseball at Hawkins Field in Nashville.

It all unraveled for the Cats in the sixth.

The defending national champs finally got to Marsh for two runs in the sixth, took the lead with two runs against the UK bullpen in the seventh, and put the game away with a four-run eighth to clinch the series over the Cats.

Vanderbilt (39-12, 19-9 SEC) continued to build momentum toward next week's SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala. Kentucky (28-22, 11-18 SEC) lost its seventh straight game in league play.

The Commodores got a 3-for-4 game from designated hitter Jack Bulger, two hits from catcher CJ Rodriguez, and two more from Thursday's walk-off home run hero, Troy LaNeve, who drove in a team-high three runs in Game 2.

Leiter, the son of former Major Leaguer Al Leiter and a likely Top 5 pick in this year's MLB Draft, worked six innings, allowing two runs on three hits and a pair of walks while striking out eight. He has allowed only 20 earned runs on 36 hits in 82.1 innings on the mound this season.

Collett went 3-for-3, but the Cats managed only eight hits against the Vandy staff. Chris McElvain (4-1) earned the win out of the Commodores' bullpen with 1.1 innings of scoreless relief work.

Alex Degen (2-1) took the loss for UK, allowing two runs to cross the plate in the seventh inning.

The series concludes on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET, the final regular-season game for both teams.