The Lady Vols seem to be peaking at the right time.
Tennessee softball will compete in the SEC Tournament in Lexington this week, and head coach Karen Weekly believes her team is heading in the right direction.
“I feel like now, we’re trending where we want to trend,” Weekly said.
The season opened with a program-best 26-game winning streak. Yet Weekly has seen the downside of achieving such success without much challenge. In 2024, Tennessee breezed all season long before being knocked out in the NCAA Super Regionals by Alabama.
“I’ve said before, I think 2024, one of the things that got us in the end was we didn’t experience adversity during the season, and this year experienced adversity,” Weekly said.
After hitting a mid-season swoon against Ole Miss and South Carolina, the longtime head coach has seen her team slowly return to the form they displayed early in the season.
“I feel like it’s been this stock market climb back up,” Weekly said. “You know, some steps forward, maybe a step back, another step or two forward, step back.”
Part of that return to form has involved getting back to what made them successful early in the season.
“It’s more about who we were at that point in time in our season, and who we are now, and getting back to focusing on being great at communicating on the field, being really good with our body language and our eye contact, being really good with our breathing and our routines and playing with our eyes,” Weekly said.
One of those players who has been on that step forward, step back trajectory has been her star pitcher, Karlyn Pickens. After being ineffective in her Saturday start against Alabama, she would return to the form that made her the No. 1 overall pick in the AUSL draft, striking out 11 in five innings.
Against Missouri, she factored into each game. The senior recorded a win on Thursday, a save on Friday, and a loss on Saturday. Still, the two-time SEC Pitcher of the Year has largely looked confident down the stretch, and she said she feels healthy entering the tournament after missing time due to injury mid-season.
“I think coming off an injury like that, I was super eager to get back out there and be able to support my team and do what I was needed to do,” Pickens said. “I’m definitely in a spot where, for sure, I’m back to 100%, ready for the ball.”
With the adversity this team has faced this season, Pickens said the team is ready for anything.
“We have gone through some ups and downs in all areas, so I think now going into postseason, we aren’t gonna be surprised by anything,” Pickens said. “We know how to respond, and how to attack those adversities head on, so I think that shows that this team has fight.”
As the team turns the page to the SEC Tournament, Weekly said she wants her team playing on their toes, not their heels. While she didn’t see the team back off in the loss to Missouri, she said they didn’t “move forward on everything.”
“You can kinda see it in some people’s faces when they’re starting to question, have doubt about what they’re doing, and not just flushing what happened, letting go of any frustration and putting the pedal to the mettle and going,” Weekly said.
The Lady Vols will have their opportunity to flush the loss against Missouri against Ole Miss Wednesday night, who the Lady Vols fell to in a home series at the end of March. Either they will take a step forward and move on, or take a step back and go home from the tournament early.
