Tennessee softball continues to struggle, as the offense fails to deliver in key moments, resulting in a Lady Vols loss.
The Lady Vols lost a rough 5-1 match to the Gamecocks (23-16, 3-8), where the Lady Vols (31-6, 8-6) were bested on all phases of the game. There’s not much a team can do whenever the bats only post one run.
Gabby Leach was the only player in the Lady Vols lineup to bring in a run. She went 1-for-3 on the evening with an RBI. Now, the Lady Vols are forced to a rubber match on Saturday against the Gamecocks.
Outworked in every phase
The offense struggled to get much going on Friday, as only three Lady Vols hitters tallied a base hit.
Meredith Barnhart led the team with two hits in three at-bats, while Leach and Elsa Morrison had one.
“We got beat in every phase of the game tonight,” Tennessee head coach Karen Weekly said. “It’s kind of ‘Captain Obvious’ to say, free passes, shaky defense, and not dealing with runners in scoring position. That’s going to get you beat.”
Karlyn Pickens started the game, where she looked solid in the first inning, before she began to falter with a handful of walks in the next few frames. She finished the night with a rough four free passes.
“Karlyn’s really honest with herself, and she’s really honest with her teammates,” Weekly said. “She said, ‘I have to be better, and I can’t let one thing frustrate me, take it into the next pitch.’”
One of her walks led to a two-run single in the third inning, one run unearned, putting the Lady Vols down early with no response.
By the time the team found themselves down two, there was no coming back. One run in the bottom of the sixth is all the team could muster.
Another low-scoring effort
The Lady Vols’ loss on Friday night is the team’s sixth loss where they’ve finished with two or fewer runs in the contest — marking every loss they’ve endured this season. All of these games have occurred in a span of the last two weeks, when the team lost its first game of the season, 1-0 to the Mississippi State Bulldogs.
“I think the whole aggressive passive thing is where hitters can go sideways,” Weekly said. “As a hitter it’s, I know what I’m going in there to hit, and I’m ready to hit it whenever it comes, and when you get aggressive, you tend to swing at pitches you shouldn’t. When you get passive, you tend to miss the pitch when it comes.”
Weekly is looking for more certainty from her players. On Friday night, the team struck out just three times but left five crucial runners on base. Players like Sophia Knight, Ella Dodge and Alannah Leach finished the game with a combined zero hits over seven at-bats.
Uncharacteristic start from Pickens
It’s been a rough go at it the last few appearances for Pickens, whose struggles continued into Friday against South Carolina. She walked four batters and was tabbed with the loss.
Since her first loss of the season, which took place against Florida on March 21, Pickens has lost three more games, including the one on Friday night. She has allowed a run in five of her last six appearances.
“It’s just uncharacteristic of her to give up as many free passes as tonight, when she got the base hit to start and walked the next two batters, we hadn’t really mounted much of a threat at that point, and so you’re sitting there thinking about tomorrow too. No reason to just let them keep seeing her.”
In Pickens’ last five starts, she has walked 14 batters. While she started Friday’s game with an impressive three up, three down, it finished with her team trailing.
With a game to go in the series, the Lady Vols need some momentum in any way they can get it.
