Having an up-close view of your twin sister hitting a home run might be a lifetime memory. But what about going back-to-back with her?

Alannah and Gabby Leach hit back-to-back homers for the first time in their collegiate careers to land a knockout punch in the sixth inning of No. 1 Tennessee’s 11-6 win over LSU.

“What a cool thing for them,” head coach Karen Weekly said after the game. “It was just so cool that they happened to be back-to-back in the lineup and do that. I would think that has to be awfully special for them as sisters.”

The Tigers (17-6, 0-2) put the Lady Vols (22-0, 2-0) in a quick 4-0 hole in the first inning, but Gabby sparked the team with a solo blast to center field to lead off the second.

“We had confidence knowing it was so early in the game,” Alannah said. “Just knowing that each inning we’re gonna still show up and keep that attack mindset and dominate each inning. Not a doubt in my mind that we weren’t gonna get it back.”

In the third, Gabby tapped a pitch out front of the plate into no-man’s land, drawing LSU catcher Maci Bergeron too far into the field to allow Zoie Shuler to slide around the tag and score the game-tying run.

“Today in hitting, I tweaked a few things and I know I just needed to make adjustments each at-bat,” Gabby said. “Keeping things simple, having fun, just not trying to think too much.”

Alannah would enter the game in the sixth as a defensive replacement for Taelyn Holley in left field, as the Lady Vols held an 8-6 lead. The ball quickly found her, as a ball headed towards the gap was tracked down by the new left fielder to keep the basepaths clean.

Then came the bottom of the inning, and Alannah stepped to the dish with Ella Dodge on first and two away in the inning. A 0-1 pitch was shot the other way and off the scoreboard for a two-run homer to stretch the lead.

“Going into the at-bat, I was just like keeping it simple, see ball hit ball,” Alannah said. “So when I saw that ball coming in, I was just like ‘Ok, I’m gonna go for it,’ and seeing it off the bat, it was a good feeling so I was like ‘Please go over, please go over,’ but it was good.”

Then Gabby strutted to the batter’s box. An 11-pitch battle between her and LSU pitcher Paytn Monticelli appeared to end with a pop-up down the first base line in foul territory – until miscommunication between the two converging infielders allowed the ball to fall harmlessly.

The inning continued and Gabby settled back into the box. For her, it was about “winning the next pitch,” she said.

The very next pitch, something “special” happened. Gabby drilled the 12th pitch of the at-bat into the camera well in straight-away center field for her second homer of the day, going back-to-back with sister Alannah for the first time in their collegiate careers.

“It was super fun, we’ve never done anything like that before,” Alannah said.

“I told Alannah right after that I had a feeling, like I literally had a ‘spidey-sense,’” Gabby said. “She came out swinging and she hit that ball and I was like, you know what, let’s keep it going.”

The consecutive homer was quite a moment in itself, but Alannah said they’ve “never talked about it, never really thought about it.”

Now they can talk about it and think about it for a lifetime.